Chocolate Trifle

Do you like chocolate? No? Then go away. Your kind isn't welcome here in the land of cake and pudding and candy bars and slobber-slobber-slobber. Chocolate trifle is for Serious Chocolate Fans Only.

This is a recipe from my mom and while it's not exactly a holiday tradition, she did make it probably once a year or so. It's great for hosted functions or even to bring to parties (although be careful transporting it) because it's easy to make and looks nice and no one who's ever eaten it doesn't salivate at the thought of it. I made this two weekends ago when a group of friends visited and my goodness, I wish I was eating it again RIGHT NOW. Chocolate trifle, you'll be the death of me.

Chocolate Trifle

1 chocolate cake 
2 boxes of instant chocolate pudding
1 tub of Cool Whip
2 Skor bars (frozen)
Kahlua (optional)

How fancy you want to get depends on your preference. I make the cake from scratch because I'm  physically incapable of NOT making a chocolate cake from scratch; my grandmother's recipe is too deliciously moist and chocolatey that stuff from a box, even when smothered with other ingredients, just isn't the same. But I won't judge you (too harshly).

Bake cake in a 13x9 pan and let cool, then cut into 1x1 squares and divide in half. Make pudding as instructed on the box. Break Skor bars into pieces. When everything is prepared, layer ingredients in a trifle bowl in this order: cake, Kahlua (drizzled), pudding, Cool Whip, Skor bars. Usually two layers of each will fill the bowl. Refrigerate and serve.

Easy, right? The hardest part is trying to break up the frozen Skor bars. And it leaves you open to get creative. You can add other types of liquor, other types of candy bars, sprinkles to make it festive. I was wondering how it would taste with butterscotch pudding instead of chocolate and with caramel sauce drizzled on it, as well. Kind of a turtle trifle. Go wild.

But seriously. Don't forget the chocolate.

Brickle

There are a lot of reasons why I love making brickle. First of all, it's delicious. Like, chocolate-covered sunshine delicious. Like, if I could only eat one food the rest of my life, it's in the running, despite what I'm sure would be utter warfare on my digestive tract. Second of all, it's easy. It takes about 10 minutes and four key ingredients to make it. It is un-screw-uppable. And third, it is completely open to creativity. No two brickles are ever the same, or if they are, you just aren't trying hard enough.

With a slew of leftover candy canes and me being too cheap sentimental to throw them away, I decided to try making candy cane brickle. It was heavenly. It's times like these that I secretly suspect I may be in a genius, and I think the evidence is in my favor (although that goes away as soon as I put a pair of jeans in the wash with gum in the pocket. My bad!). Here, see for yourself:

It's sweet, it's salty; it's chocolatey, it's minty. If there was some way to integrate coffee into it, I might explode.

Brickle
 40 saltine crackers
1 cup (2 sticks) butter
1 cup brown sugar
12-oz. bag chocolate chips
toppings - go wild!

Line a cookie sheet with aluminum foil. (The type of cookie sheets with edges.) Line the sheet with a single layer of saltines face up and touching. Preheat oven to 400.

Heat the butter in a saucepan over medium heat. When the butter is melted, stir in brown sugar and heat mixture to a boil. Boil rapidly for 3 minutes or until the butter is no longer visible, stirring constantly. Pour immediately over the saltines, distributing evenly with the back of a spoon. Bake 5 minutes.

Sprinkle tray with chocolate chips. After two minutes, use the back of a spoon to level the melted chocolate across the sheet. Add toppings. Refrigerate two hours, then break into pieces.

The toppings are really where it's at. You can go buckwild. I've used sprinkles, M&Ms, almonds, walnuts, toffee bits, and now candy canes. I've even doused it with liquid white chocolate (I don't recommend it because it'd doesn't solidify in the fridge.) You can try using different types of chocolate chips (again, don't use white chocolate because it doesn't melt right). In all, the only limit is your imagination.

Thankfully, I still have candy canes leftover, enough to make this delicious treat again. Merry Christmas to me!

Candy Cane Cookies

Pretty much all of my free time at home over the past couple of days has been devoted to cookie-baking. I know, it's a tough life I lead. I've already made multiple batches of four different types of cookies and last night was the fifth: candy cane cookies.

(Recipe originally from the Betty Crocker Cookbook, with alterations.)

1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
1/2 cup shortening
1 cup confectioner's sugar
1 egg
1 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon red food coloring

Heat oven to 375F. Mix butter, shortening, confectioner's sugar, egg and flavorings. Blend in flour and salt. Divide dough in half and blend food coloring into one half. Shape 1 teaspoon of dough from each half into a 4-inch-long rope. Press ropes together lightly and twist. Place on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 9 minutes or until set and lightly brown.

I'd also suggest sprinkling the cookies with sugar before baking them. Despite the multiple forms of flavorings, the taste is actually not very strong.

I've been baking long enough to know that the estimate of just how many cookies a recipe will produce is an overexaggeration; that or I make the world's most ginormous cookies. But this is the most ridiculous one yet. According to Betty Crocker, this recipe should yield four dozen cookies. That is baloney. I'm always lucky to get two dozen; last night, I wound up with about 26 total (minus the broken one I disposed of orally).

These cookies are a funny tradition in my family growing up. The recipe came from my mom's 1970s-edition Betty Crocker Cookbook and were always a big hit with me, my dad and my brother. They tasted good - light and almondy and not overpowering, perfect with a cup of tea or coffee or as a chaser for a richer, more chocolately dessert. Plus they're fun-looking. Candy canes! Yay, Christmas! But they're a huge pain in the butt to make. The process of rolling out the dough and twisting it is one thing; there is also the cookies' consistency: soft and flaky, which is yummy to eat but comes with a propensity to break apart in many pieces. My one casualty last night was actually kind of impressive. So, with that debate raging every year, whether we actually made them at Christmas or not was really a toss-up.

Betty Crocker no longer puts this recipe in her book (and yes, I realize Betty Crocker is not a real person, but she is to me so LAY OFF), a fact I was extremely disappointed to discover when I moved into my first apartment and got a copy of my own. What the what, Betty?! Frankly, the only reason I bought the book was because of this and her apple pie recipes (which is still included). Thankfully, I was able to copy it out of my mom's book and now make them every year.