Chocolate Smothered Strawberry Pancakes

Yes, I made pancakes but they were darn good pancakes! I made a sweet buttermilk pancake and smothered it with strawberry and chocolate sauce. Very tasty indeed. So  next time you want pancake house quality pancakes just make em yourself! (these are probably just as good, if not better!) So I hope you enjoy my recipe for chocolate smothered strawberry buttermilk pancakes! 


Ingredients (pancakes):

• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1 egg
• 1 1/3 cups buttermilk
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 2 tbs. melted butter
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract 

Directions:

• Preheat skillet over medium heat and grease lightly.
• Whisk ingredients together until smooth 
• Pour batter on skillet or griddle to form 5 pancakes (depends on how big you want them)
• Flip pancakes when edges appear hardened and when bubbles start to form, cook pancakes on other side until golden brown.

Ingredients (strawberry sauce):

• 1 pint of strawberries
• 1/3 cup sugar
• juice of half a lemon

Directions:

• Cut strawberries in half, in a saucepan over medium heat combine strawberries, sugar, and lemon juice. 
• Cook until sauce thickens and remove from heat. 
• Put sauce into a blender and puree, if you like a chunkier sauce then save about a third of the chopped strawberries and stir them in at the end. 
• Store in the fridge! 

Ingredients (chocolate sauce):

• 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (i used dark)
• 1 cup sugar
• 2/3 cup water 
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract

Directions:

• In a medium sauce pan combine cocoa, sugar, and water. 
• Bring to a boil and let boil for about a minute, remove from heat and stir in vanilla.
• Store in the fridge! This is also a tasty topping for ice cream!

Enjoy! =D




 

Fresh Strawberry Sabayon

This recipe was inspired by Ina Garten's fresh raspberry gratins. I was watching her show Barefoot Contessa and saw her make them and I just had to try them! But of course I tweaked it a bit, I used strawberries instead of raspberries and instead of using a sweet Marsala wine, I used a sweet white wine called Barefoot Riesling, but I'm sure you can use any type of sweet wine you have, it's gonna be good either way =] (I'll also include a recipe for strawberry lemonade because strawberries are best at this time of the season and it was very tasty!) 

Ingredients:

• 8 egg yolks 
• 2/3 cup sugar (Ina used superfine but I used regular and that worked out just fine)
• 1 cup sweet wine
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 lbs fresh strawberries, quartered
• granulated sugar 

Directions:

• If you're going to use the broiler preheat it about 15 minutes with the wire rack about 5 inches away from heat (I used a blow torch!)  
•  For the sabayon whisk together egg yolks and sugar in a heat proof bowl over simmering water until thick and creamy, about 4 to 5 minutes. Whisk almost constantly, scraping the egg mixture from the bottom of the bowl. Slowly whisk in the wine and continue whisking over the simmering water for about 5 more minutes, until the mixture is thick and smooth, like a soft whipped cream. (should be about 150 degrees F) Take off heat, whisk in vanilla and set aside.
• Place a snug layer of strawberries in a gratin dish (I used Pyrex glass bowl thingies because I did not have gratin dishes, so use whatever kind of HEAT PROOF small-ish dish you'd like) Spoon enough sabayon over strawberries to cover them, sprinkle each one lightly with sugar and if using broiler, arrange them on two sheet pans and one at a time place them under the broiler for 2 to 3 minutes or until they get golden brown, if using a torch be verryy careful and and torch until golden brown! Serve warm!  

Now for that strawberry lemonade I promised you =]

  Ingredients:

•  Juice of 3 lemons
• 1 pint fresh chopped strawberries
• 2 or 3 sprigs of mint
• 1 liter of seltzer water
• 1/3 cup agave syrup or simple syrup (I made a lemon simple syrup with equal parts sugar and water and let that sit on medium low heat with a few lemon slices) 
• Ice

Directions: 

• Bruise the mint leaves along with the strawberries with a  mortar and pestle or just with the other end of a wooden spoon at the bottom of a pitcher, add lemon juice, seltzer water,syrup, and ice and enjoy!

More Bananas!

So how many of you have forgotten about your yellow ripe bananas you bought a few days ago? You see now that they're a bit over ripe and brown, and perhaps a bit squishy, but don't throw them away! Over ripe bananas are actually sweeter than your yellow ripe naners and, I believe, best for baking! So here I have for you Banana walnut chocolate chip muffins! Enjoy! =D

Ingredients:

• 1 3/4 cups flour
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 brown sugar
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1/2 cup plain or vanilla yogurt 
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1 cup mashed over ripe bananas (about three) 
• opt- 1/2 cup walnuts
• opt- 1/3 cup mini chocolate chips 

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line muffin tins with baking cups or spray with cooking oil 
• In a large bowl, sift together flour, white sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Fold in the chocolate chips and walnuts in the dry ingredients so they wont sink to the bottom of the muffin while baking.
• With an electric mixer, beat brown sugar, egg, oil, yogurt, and vanilla extract until well combined, slowly mix in dry ingredients until just combined and fold in bananas at the end.
• Fill batter two-thirds of the way full in lined or greased muffin tins and bake for 22-25 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean, let cool on wire rack before serving and enjoy!

Go Bananas!

It's bananas :O Yes, it's delicious banana cream pie! I had bananas and cream this week so I thought what better way to highlight these ingredients than with this here pie =] The crust, custard and of course the whipped cream is all made from scratch and it sure does make a difference here. Enjoy!

Ingredients:
for the crust:

• 2 cups crushed vanilla wafers
• 1/2 cup of crushed walnuts
• 6 tbs. melted butter

for the rest:

• 4 large ripe bananas
• 2 cups milk
• 6 large egg yolks
• 1/4 cup cornstarch
• 3/4 cup light brown sugar
• 2 tsp. vanilla extract (custard)
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 4 tbs. butter, room temp
• 2 cups whipping cream
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract (whipped cream)

Directions:

• Crush vanilla wafers and walnuts with food processor or in a large plastic zip lock bag by crushing with a heavy pan. Add melted butter until well combined and press into a buttered pie pan, make sure it is evenly distributed. Place in freezer until ready to fill.
• For the custard, add 1 peeled banana, milk, egg yolks, cornstarch, sugar, vanilla and salt into blender, blend until smooth. Pour into a small saucepan, bring to a simmer over medium heat and cook, stirring constantly until mixture bubbles and is thick, about 7 to 8 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in butter, a few pieces at a time, until melted. Pour custard into a small bowl and top with plastic wrap so a skin does not form and set aside in refrigerator until room temp.
• While waiting for custard to cool, whip whipping cream, sugar and vanilla until soft peaks form.
• When custard is cool take out pie crust and slice 3 remaining bananas. Pour custard into pie crust and top with the bananas and then, whipped cream, top with few more banana slices for prettiness =]
• Let pie cool in refrigerator for about three hours and then, enjoy! 

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies

Now these may look like your normal chocolate cookies but I can assure you, they're not. I packed a peanut butter surprise inside, and they are tasty! So since reese's peanut butter cups are my favorite candy, I had this idea of making it cookie style and I'm quite pleased with the results. I got the chocolate cookie recipe from www.lovefromtheoven.com I did change a few things and you can make another delicious cookie with this recipe too (I'll put a picture up) and I made up the peanut butter filling =]  So, I hope you enjoy! 


Ingredients:
-1 cup cold butter, cubed
-1 cup sugar
-1/4 cup packed brown sugar
-1 tsp. vanilla extract
-2 eggs 
-1/2 cup dark cocoa powder
-2 1/4 cups flour
-1/4 tsp. salt
-1 tsp. baking powder

For peanut butter filling:
-1 cup peanut butter
-1 cup sugar
-1 tsp. vanilla
-1/4 cup flour


Directions:
-Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line baking sheet with parchment paper. 
-In a large mixing bowl, cream together butter and sugar. Beat until light and fluffy, then add vanilla and add eggs one at a time. Mix in cocoa powder until well blended. 
-In another bowl, sift together flour, salt, and baking powder. On low speed, mix dry ingredients into wet until well incorporated. 
-For peanut butter, blend ingredients in a medium bowl until well incorporated. 

Now, this may look like your average cookie but...

-Okay, now it's time to fill, take a bit of the chocolate cookie dough and make into a 1 1/2 inch round, then add about a teaspoon or so of the peanut butter filling and cover with more chocolate dough and do that until you have your baking sheet filling (make sure to put the cookies about an inch apart) Place into oven and bake for about 12-14 minutes. Remove and let cool on wire wrack.

Peanut butter filling! Yum!

Now, I said there's another cookie you can make, and that's just an amazing double chocolate cookie, just add 2 1/2 cups of chocolate chips to the chocolate cookie dough, make into 4 oz. portions and bake at 350 for 14-16 minutes.

Don't forget to check out www.lovefromtheoven.com
And, check out my friends blog www.callmeexpert.blogspot.com it's about video games, he talks about Zelda <3, the secret of Luigis mansion and how to make your own video game! It's really good and fun to read!