Caramel Chocolate Cake (a.k.a. Milky Way Cake)

So I'm really bad at remembering things.  Like birthdays.... especially birthdays.  Thank god for Outlook.

Several months ago I was talking with my husbands awesome Aunt, and she mentioned how much her daughter would LOVE a birthday cake made by me.  Of course I said yes.... and then promptly forgot about this conversation until Monday.

So Monday rolls along, and I'm reviewing my work week, and after getting awfully excited when I see that I’m taking part of the day off on Friday (To go to my very first triathlon!)  I see that darned little birthday reminder on Wednesday.  And then I realize I totally forgot about her cake.

Bad wife!  I fail my husbands family!

So I immediately email her, and let her know that despite me not bringing it up for the last several months, I can so totally still do this.  So now I'm left to make a cake by Wednesday.  Leaving me only Tuesday and Monday to bake it.  Good thing I'm busy Tuesday.

Monday it is!

And since I'm an idiot, I decide I'm still going to do that bike ride I had planned.  I was going to bike to the pool to meet a friend and bike back.  Sounds innocent enough, no?  Husband even offered to whip up the 8 inch rounds so they'd be cool by the time I got home.  He rocks!

So I'm biking along merrily, and I see the giant hill of death and hatred and doom and despair that leads to the pool.  Stupid freaking hill.  I hate you.  So I think to myself "gee, I've never used the lowest gear on my bike before!  I bet THAT'S my problem!  This hill is going to be SUPER EASY and I'm going to be so excited to try out that new gear!  Yay ideas!  Smart me!"

I switch to this low gear mid way up the hill, immediately drop the chain on my bike, and swerve to the side of the road.  Fantastic.

Still being optimistic, (which I had to hold on to at this point given the fact I was alone without a cell phone... Cause, you know, that's how I roll) I decide that I CAN FIX THIS.  I automatically picture myself heroically flipping my bike over, diagnosing the problem, untangling and resetting my gears all by myself, with my husband and friend none the wiser.

Cut to me, in a swimsuit and shorts, covered up to her elbows in bike grease, panicking and sweating by the side of the road.

Fail.

So nice man in a pretty car sees this, undoubtedly laughs to himself and pulls over.  He flips my bike over and starts explaining what's going on with it (using all the wicked awesome bike terminology.  I think he used the word "sprocket" but I can't be sure.) And he said I'll need to take my bike apart to fix this.

I didn’t have to take it apart to BREAK it, so why should I have to do that to FIX it.  Hmph.

So nice man let's greasy, disheveled girl use his fancy cell phone to call husband.  Who is of course 30 minutes away from being able to get me.  I tell him where I am and quickly give the man his phone back.  I proceed to wait... and braid grass... until my husband gets there.

Oh no- friend.  Friend is at pool waiting for me.  She is going to think I died.  Crap.

So finally husband comes to get me, fixes the bike in about 10 seconds because he's Superman, and takes me to the pool.  Just as friend is running out of the pool in a frenzy, assuming I've been hit by a car or I booked it to Mexico to avoid actually competing in the tri this weekend.  I felt awful.

So this is why I got home late and the cake was haphazardly assembled and kind of ugly.  Happy Birthday!  I'm sorry about your cake.

Caramel Chocolate Cake

First, make two 8 inch chocolate round cakes and cool them.  Since I've done that about nine billion times on this blog already, we can just leave well enough alone.

Ok- caramel buttercream time.  I was super worried about this.  One- because I've never made it and I was sending this cake along to my family and it could taste icky and Two- I had no clue how difficult it was going to be to frost with a icing that has caramel added.  If you haven't heard, caramel makes things sticky and tacky.  And while this buttercream was slightly more tacky than normal, it was perfectly spreadable and happy.

So whip it up (recipe follows) and stack your cake (on a cardboard round that fits the bottom of the cake if you can.)  Don't worry, you'll add another layer.  Sticky frosting plus chocolate crumbs = crumb coat necessary.  Let it set in your fridge for about 20 min.... or like, 4 if you are in a rush. 

Add another layer and smooth it out.  Yum...

Now it's time for your ganache.  I made my go-to-ganache recipe BUT I did it with cheapo store brand semisweet chocolate chips.  Don't do that.  It turned out lumpy and unhappy.  Use nice chocolate- it makes a difference.

So this worked out great- if your cake is on a round that is fitted to the bottom of it, like mine, you can put it on top of bowl or some cups or something.  Then, when you drip the ganache on it, it will fall off instead of puddling up looking all icky at the bottom.  

See how awesome this is!

Then, transfer your cake to where ever it will end up (for me, a cake carrier.)  And decorate it up!  

Mine ended up like this:

A little rushed- but it'll do!

I didn't try this (sad) but I heard resounding positive reviews on the recipe!  I'd say it's a do again recipe!

The Chocolate Cake

Recipe adapted from: http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/too-much-chocolate-cake/Detail.aspx

Ingredients

1 (18.25 ounce) package devil's food cake mix

1 (5.9 ounce) package instant devils food (or chocolate of any kind) pudding mix

1 (8 oz) container of Daisy sour cream (full fat)

1 cup vegetable oil

4 eggs

1/2 cup warm water

2 tsp vanilla

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees  

Mix all of the ingredients together in a large bowl, or your trusty stand mixer.
Pour batter into two greased 8 inch rounds 

Bake as directed on your box mix.

Caramel Buttercream (This is for a double recipe which is enough to stack, frost, decorate and eat a lot of frosting.)

Recipe adapted from: http://www.wilton.com/recipe/Caramel-Buttercream-Icing

Ingredients

1 1/3 cup butter

16 ounce container of ice cream caramel topping 

2 tsp vanilla

2 lbs plus 1 cup (or 9 cups) powdered sugar 

4 tbsp milk (I used whole)

Directions

Cream shortening and butter with electric mixer. Add ice cream topping and vanilla. Gradually add sugar, one cup at a time, beating well on medium speed. Scrape sides and bottom of bowl often. When all sugar has been mixed in, icing will appear dry. Add milk and beat at medium speed until light and fluffy.

2/3 

More Ice Cream! (Cookie Dough, Espresso, Brownie, Raspberry, etc)

So last weekend absolutely ignited my love for making ice cream at home.  First off, it takes about a half hour to make some soft serve.  Seriously?  When you add up the time it takes me to find my keys, get in the car, wander around the grocery store buying a ridiculous amount of things I don't need, get some store bought ice cream, and drive home- that's a half hour.  And I can have homemade stuff instead!?  No brainer.

PS- I totally did that today because I needed pumpkin to make diet muffins.  I decided to bike to the grocery store, because my husband was cleaning my car because he could no longer stand the disgusting way in which I've come accustomed to living, and I didn't want to rock that boat by taking the car.  But hey!  Burned some calories and I have a clean car.  I also acquired about 13 pairs of shoes and a ton of Tupperware that apparently was hiding under my seats.  Yay productive Sundays!

Anywhoo- In conclusion, making ice cream at home doesn't take much time.  Unlike reading my rambling thoughts about it.  Second reason why I needed to make me some more ice cream?  I was going to a barbecue with my friends!  And it's flipping hot out, so I thought this would be a grande idea.  And like a good little guest, I emailed the hostess making sure they would have room in the freezer, and she kindly informed me that there was going to be about 30-40 people there.  That's a lot for my little quart sized ice cream maker to handle.

But did I drop the idea like a sane individual and bring pasta salad instead?  No!  I made ice cream every night until the party in order to have enough.  Was it worth it?  Yes!  I might have come across as the crazy lady who likes ice cream, but damn it, people left with tummies full of refreshing, delicious sinful ice cream.

And here are some of my concoctions!

Espresso

Pure Happiness.  Ice cream + caffeine.... what could be better?  And it's simple- mix in 4 tsp of instant espresso in with the milk for the vanilla ice cream, recipe follows.

Brownie Batter

Ok, we are getting a little more complicated with this one.  But not that complicated- it still starts with a boxed mix.  

Grab a brownie mix and split it half.  Grab a small pan (mine say's it's "6 cups" which is not that helpful.  Husband  measured and it seems to be 6 by 8.)  Following the instructions on the box, prepare and bake half the mix, making sure to adjust the cooking time down.  I doubled the amount of water in the recipe by accident- but the brownies were SUPER moist and kind of crumbled into the ice cream, giving it a cookies and cream type consistency.  It was amazing.  Happy accident?  

Let them cool.

Chop them up.

Try to not eat them all.

Freeze these suckers.  Mix up the basic vanilla ice cream, and after 20 minutes add in 1 cup of the remaining brownie mix.  Let that blend, and add in the frozen brownie bites.  If you do not want them to break apart, you will want to instead fold these in after the ice cream is out of the mixer.  But having them all broken up by the mixer into different sized pieces was amazing!

Cookie Dough (Nope, no eggs!)
We can't go crazy for homemade ice cream without attempting a good cookie dough!  The recipe I made for the cookie dough makes enough for four (count em' FOUR) batches of ice cream.  So you can either
A.  Cut back on the recipe...
B.  Make more ice cream to mix the cookie dough into... or
C.  Eat a lot of cookie dough.

I went for a combo of B and C.  Mostly C.  A lot of C.

 Cream together your butter and sugars.  Add the vanilla and flour.  Then (get this) add in your can of sweetened condensed milk (this takes the place of the egg and adds sweetness.  It's amazing.)

Mix in your mini chips.

Next, line a baking tray with saran wrap, and put your dough on top of it.  Place another layer of saran wrap over the dough, and press it down into the pan.  Making sure everything is covered, you can freeze this tray of cookie dough.  

Yum.

Let this set up for a few hours or overnight.  Then, pop the entire batch out of the tray, and start cutting up your cookie dough pieces.

 It's hard to tell from this picture, but the pieces are pretty small- maybe 1.5 cm cubed.  

Try to leave some to put into the ice cream.  Fold these into a batch of vanilla ice cream, and voila!











Raspberry White Chocolate Chunk
As I progress through these ice creams, they get progressively more and more complicated.  Apparently I got progressively more ambitious.  But this one certainly paid off!

First, let's make a ridiculously intense raspberry sauce to mix into the ice cream.  I've made this before for cupcakes, but I think the sauce ended up better this time, so this is what I did.

Grab two pints of raspberries.  Wash them.  Don't eat them.   Ok, eat a couple.  

Add in your sugar and your lemon juice and heat these over medium heat until broken down.

Once it's a little more broken down then this, place the raspberries in strainer with a bowl underneath to get all the seeds out.  Really try to get all the juice out.

Return the juice to the stove, add 1/8 cup of sugar and 2 tbsp light corn syrup and simmer for 20 min until very thick.  

Place this in a bowl, cover it, and refrigerate until cool (at least several hours.)

SO GOOD!

Ok, once cool you are ready to start you ice cream.  Again, I used the vanilla base recipe.  I also had 2 white chocolate bars chopped up and ready to go.  

After about 25 min, add in your raspberry sauce.  I used about 3/4 of the recipe, and retained the rest to serve as a topping.  Just add and let it blend, and taste it to see if it's to your liking.

Add in the chopped white chocolate once the raspberry sauce is combined, and you are done!

Yay! I'm done with all the ice cream!!  My favorite was the brownie- but the raspberry was a huge hit (probably didn't even need the white chocolate chunks- it was amazing on its own.)  Hubby liked the espresso the best, and the cookie dough was probably the biggest hit at the party.

So gee, I don't know.  Guess you'll have to make them all. Drat.  

Recipe time!!

Basic Vanilla Ice Cream 

Recipe adapted from: Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker Recipe Book

Ingredients
3/4 cup White Sugar
1 cup Whole Milk

2 cups Cream

2 tsp Pure Vanilla

Directions

Whisk sugar into milk until dissolved.  Pour vanilla into your cream.  Combine milk and cream.  Freeze according to your ice cream makers directions.

Espresso Ice Cream 

Recipe adapted from: Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker Recipe Book

Start with the basic vanilla recipe, but add 4 tsp of instant espresso powder to the sugar when mixing with the milk.  

Brownie Ice Cream

Recipe adapted from: Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker Recipe Book

Ingredients
1 box brownie mix

1/2 the oil, eggs and other ingredients your boxed recipe calls for

Directions

Divide brownie mix.

Taking half of the mix, prepare brownie batter as directed (adding only half of the ingredients listed, but ALL of the water.)  If the recipe only calls for one egg, crack the egg into a small bowl, whisk, and pour half of the beaten egg into the batter.

Bake the brownies until done.  Cut into chunks and freeze. 

Later, prepare the basic vanilla ice cream .  After about 20 min, pour in one cup of the unbaked brownie mix.  Let process.  Pour frozen brownie chunks into ice cream and let process.  

Cookie Dough Ice Cream

Recipe adapted from: Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker Recipe Book and http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paulas-best-dishes/cookie-dough-truffles-recipe/index.html

Ingredients (this makes enough for 4 batches of ice cream.)  

1 stick butter

3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1 tsp pure vanilla

2 cups all purpose flour

1 (14 oz) can of sweetened condensed milk

1 cup mini chocolate chips.

Directions

In a large bowl cream butter and brown sugar with an electric mixer at medium speed until creamy. Add vanilla. Gradually beat in flour and add milk. Add chocolate chips.

Press mixture into a saran wrap lined pan.  Place another layer of warp over top and press down.  Freeze pan.

Once frozen, pop the dough onto a cutting board and cut into chunks.  Freeze extra dough for future ice cream batches (or snacking!)  

Prepare a batch of the basic vanilla ice cream and fold cookie dough in at the end.

Raspberry Ice Cream

Recipe adapted from: Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker Recipe Book and http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/emeril-lagasse/raspberry-sauce-recipe/index.html

Ingredients 

2 pints fresh raspberries

1/2 cup of sugar, divided

1 tbsp lemon juice

2 tbsp light corn syrup

Directions

Wash raspberries and dry completely.  Mix raspberries, half the sugar and the lemon juice in a sauce pan.  Cook over medium heat until raspberries are broken down, about 10 min.

Strain raspberries and collect juice in a bowl. Return this juice to the stove.  

Add the rest of the sugar and the corn syrup and bring to a simmer.  Cook down for about 20 min.  Allow to cool before adding to ice cream.

Prepare basic vanilla ice cream.  After 25 min, add raspberry sauce to taste.  Top with chopped white chocolate.  

Cake Batter Ice Cream (and Ice Cream Cookie Sandwiches!)

So recently I discovered that I'm lactose intolerant.  Actually, let's go with "lactose sensitive."  A. Because I haven't gone to a doctor to diagnose this and B. Because I want to eat lactose anyway, which means I'm not "intolerant" to it.  I will undoubtedly tolerate a horrendous stomach ache for food.  Hell, on Cheat Day I'll wolf down deep fried whatever covered in cheese and dipped in ranch with a side of an entire large pepperoni pizza and follow that up with bacon and cookie bars and regret.  How do you think I feel after eat all that?  I feel awful.  But I'm a trooper and eat it all anyway.

So since Cheat Day is all about eating everything I can't during the week, I somehow determined that eating dairy on Cheat Day is ok.  Plus it's really flippin hot outside.  So I figured that ice cream had to be on the agenda for the day.

Was this a wise decision?  Probably not, considering how awful I felt afterwards.  But do I plan on making ice cream again next weekend?  Yes, sir!

I'll never learn...

Cake Batter Ice Cream Sandwiches

The glorious thing about making this was that it was so incredibly easy.  I should have broken out the ice cream maker much earlier in the season!

Start by whisking 3/4 cup white sugar into 1 cup of whole milk.  Pour 2 cups of cream into a measuring cup, and add 2 tsp of pure vanilla into it.

Yes, I took a picture of a measuring cup full of cream.  Wouldn't you?  

Whisk together your cream mixture and your milk mixture.  Turn on your ice cream maker and pour it in slowly.  I suggest a funnel at this point.

5 minutes before your ice cream maker should be done (use the instructions for your machine.)  Add in 1 cup of yellow cake mix.  Let it incorporate in.  Grab spoonfuls and taste.  

When the ice cream has reached your desired consistency, pour into a freezer safe container and cover tightly.  I put a layer of saran wrap directly on the surface of mine.  You'll want to let it set in the freezer for at least an hour before you serve it up, or in my case make ice cream cookie sandwiches.  This would be a good time to go see the Harry Potter movie.  Go ahead, I'll wait...

...

...


... annnnnnd we're back.

So you can go ahead and serve it up as it, and be extremely happy, becuase it is extremely amazing. 

Two wee little bowls for hubby and I.  Just to taste!

But since Cheat Day is all about excess, I couldn't leave well enough alone.  It's cookie time, baby!  My husband's absolute favorite cookie is just basic Chocolate Chip cookies.  For an ice cream cookie, I think I'll try something else next time.  Once frozen, these aren't particularly soft and the chocolate chips are rock solid.  BUT, when you just assemble and eat- they are fantastic.  So I feel like that is just a fantastic excuse to eat all of these as you prepare them.

PS: If you make a whole recipe of the cookies, you'll have extra.  This problem is exacerbated when you down half the ice cream before you start assembling sandwiches.  Oops!

Cookie time!  Soften your butter and cream it with your sugar, brown sugar and vanilla.  

Add in two eggs, one at a time, incorporating into the batter after each.

Mix in your flour, baking soda and salt. 

Next, it's time for your mix ins.  If you do flan on freezing the cookies, I suggest mini chocolate morsels or mini M&M's.  I did full size and I think this would be much better.

Mix your add ins into your dough, and you are good to go!

Drop dough onto an ungreased cookie sheet and cook for 8 min at 375 (or until done.)

Let cool.  Sample.  Enjoy. 

These have M&M's.  Because they are delicious. 

Line em' up and get them ready to be made into sandwiches. 

Try to pair up like sized cookies for the pretties looking sandwiches. 

I used a mini ice cream scoop to pile on about 2.5 scoops onto each cookie.  Smash the top cookie on, and run your finger around the side for a clean edge.  You can also rim these in sprinkles or mini chocolate chips, but I liked them as is. 

Next?  Take lots of pictures. Eat lots of ice cream sandwiches.  Be happy.

Verdict?  Perfect little summer treat!  The ice cream was perfection- I am going to have to have many more ice cream experiments throughout the summer!  Next up?  Who knows, cookie dough?  Brownie batter?  I'll come up with something.

The cookies are great as is, but like I said before, I'm not a huge fan of  once they are frozen.  I suggest assembling and eating immediately.

Recipe time!

Cake Batter Ice Cream

Recipe adapted from: Cuisinart Ice Cream Maker Recipe Book

Ingredients
3/4 cup White Sugar
1 cup Whole Milk

2 cups Cream

2 tsp Pure Vanilla

1 cup Yellow Cake Mix (like Betty Crocker)

Directions

Whisk sugar into milk until dissolved.  Pour vanilla into your cream.  Combine milk and cream.  Freeze according to your ice cream makers directions.

Chocolate Chip Cookies
Recipe adapted from: Original Nestle Cookie Recipe 

Ingredients

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened

3/4 cup granulated sugar

3/4 cup packed brown sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 large eggs

2 cups (12-oz. pkg.) mini chocolate chips

Directions
Preheat oven to 375

Cream butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla extract in large mixer bowl until creamy.

Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.

Gradually beat in flour, baking soda and salt. Stir in morsels.

Drop by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets.  Bake for 8 min or until done.

Forgiving Cookie Bar Recipe

So we all need those recipes in the house that you can bake up even if you are short on ingredients.  Because lets face it, when it comes to baking, I some times don't have the best luck.  Having all the proper ingredients around when I haven't gone to the grocery store is pretty rare.

Heck, having everything I need AFTER I get to the store is still a stretch for this one.  Especially when I tend to make complicated recipes that call for the same ingredients over and over, and then I have to add in my head, and then I fail because math is hard. 

And you know those bakers that can rattle off how many cups are in the pint and exactly how much a "smidgen" is?  Yeah, I'm not one of those.  Thank goodness for my droid.  I'm that frazzled woman wandering around your local grocery store with her nose buried in her phone and a basket brimming with butter, eggs, butter, cream, more butter, unsalted butter, chocolate, and caffeine.

And I'm also the person who always thinks its a good idea to grab a basket, not a cart.  Especially when my husband is there to carry it.  I have this strange idea that if I have a basket and not a cart, I'll buy less and save money.  In all actuality I just cram everything in and annoy the husband.

Ok, I've seriously gotten off topic.  So I wanted to used up partial bags of chocolate chips and nuts, so I decided to make some cookie bars!  I also ran out of flour, so they became oatmeal cookie bars!  And no matter what you do, they are delicious.  So grab you half eaten bags of Reese's pieces, your handful of peanut butter chips from a recipe long forgotten, and all those crumbled bags of various kinds of chocolate chips in the back of your cabinet.  Check expiration dates.  Double check by sampling a few.  Might want to check a couple more times.  Annnnd- it's time for some bars.

Cookie Bars that even I cannot screw up
If you are feeling fancy, go ahead and sift together your flour, baking powder and salt.  I am not fancy.  I am lazy.  So I skipped this part.


I started with creaming together your butter and your sugar.  The entire pound of brown sugar.  Good times.


Add in your eggs, one at a time, until just combined. 

Add in your vanilla followed by your dry ingredients (flour or flour and oatmeal)

Finally, add in your mix ins!


Pour your dough into a greased 13 by 9 cookie sheet and pat it down, like so.

Honestly, since this is the forgiving recipe, I didn't worry too much about proportions.  I added the flour I had and then added in oats until it reached the right consistency.  I listed what worked for me below.

Bake at 350 for 30 min or until done. 

Yum.

PS: I don't like edge pieces, so I cut them off.  Like so.  Also using a pizza cutter is the easiest way I've found to cut up cookie bars!

These are nummy- as always.  I've made this recipe a bunch of times!  I love mixing it up and adding in whatever I feel like.  These + glass of milk = heaven.

Recipe!!


Cookie Bars
Recipe adapted from: http://www.bakerella.com/i-hope-you-have-chocolate-chips-handy/

2 3/4 cup all purpose flour (If you want oatmeal, you can do what I did and used 1 3/4 cup flour and 1 1/2 cup oats- add more or less to reach desired consistency)
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup butter, softened
1 lb. light brown sugar
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
Any mixin's you want!  I used about 11.5 ounces of various chocolate chips and 5 ounces of nuts

Directions
Preheat oven to 350.  You can sift together your flour, salt and baking powder as the original recipe calls for, but I did not do this step.

Cream together butter and sugar using a mixer until blended.
Add eggs, one at a time to sugar mixture, mixing on low in between each addition.
Add vanilla and mix.
Add flour, baking powder and salt and mix until combined.
Stir in chips and then pecans.

Grease a 13 x 9 pan and spread batter into dish.
Bake for 30 minutes or until top is golden brown. Make sure you don’t over bake.

Flourless Chocolate Cupcakes

So Happy (belated) Fourth of July!  So like pretty much every other holiday or special event that crosses my path, I somehow managed to make this about food.  Fireworks schmireworks- the only thing I care about blowing up are the seams to my patriotic red, white and blue bikini.


Ok, I didn't actually buy one of those bikinis- but I saw them at Walmart today and I was seriously tempted.  What says "I love my country" like cutting up a flag and covering up your naughty bits with it.  Yay America!


Nor do I really want to gain enough weight to blow the seams out of my clothing. 


Moving on.  My family for some reason decided to rent a pontoon boat to celebrate. This is actually pretty laughable.  With the key exception of my husband, the only one of us who actually know hows to drive a boat, we aren't so much "sit on a boat eating hotdogs and drinking beer" kind of people.  We are more "sit in the air conditioning eating scones and drinking mimosas" kind of people.  Regardless- we have a boat, and I need to make boat food.


Problem: I want to make flourless chocolate cake.  1.  It's delicious, 2. I had it when I went out to eat for my anniversary and now I can't get it out of my mind 3. It doesn't have flour- so it's already half way to being Atkins friendly for my sister (I'll tell you more about my sugar free attempt below.)

...But flourless chocolate cake isn't boat foot.


Solution: Make it into cupcakes!

Flourless Chocolate Cake 
This recipe is so simple- one of the main reasons it's so freaking fabulous.  It sounds all fancy, but it was really quick to whip up!

After preheating your oven to 375, start off by cutting up two sticks of butter.  Place that in your double boiler with 10.5 ounces of bittersweet chocolate.  Stir until melted, and take off the heat.









Butter and chocolate.  So far so good!

Next, cream your sugar with your eggs and egg yolks.  Slowly pour in about 1/4 of your mixture, as well as the rest of the ingredients, and fold it into the eggs.  Add in the rest of the choco-butter mix and fold in until combined. 

Pour into 12 muffin tins and bake.  Voila!

Daw- aren't the flowerdy cupcake wrappers adorable!  One of many cake related anniversary gifts from my hubbers.  He knows me so well.

You can do all sorts of filling and frosting with these babies.  I did caramel and pecan topping, strawberry filling, ganache and whipped cream frosting.  All sorts of fun stuff!

Verdict?  These were pretty great!  Honestly, I feel like flourless chocolate cake loses something in cupcake form.  I would have much rather had a small slice with the raspberry drizzled over, but that's just me.  This is very a dense, very rich, almost brownie like cupcake.  Love it!

Ok- so, remember how I said one of the reasons why I wanted to make these is because I have a sister doing Atkins?  Yeah, I thought to myself- well, it's already half way there- no flour!  Just get rid of the sugar and this will be a fabulous Atkins friendly treat.

Um, I'm going to do with a no on that one.  Picture dense, dry, black, shriveled cakes literally floating in all the butter that oozed out of them during the baking process.  Apparently the sugar in this recipe did a whole lot more than sweeten the cakes- it is a structural component, not to be replaced with splenda.  It was awful.  I guess today baking really is a science...

So what was my solution to this?  Make Atkins friendly truffles using my ganache recipe!  Woot!

(Make the ganache recipe below, chill until hard, scoop into balls, and roll in cocoa)

Flourless Chocolate Cake
Recipe From: http://penniesonaplatter.com/2009/02/12/ultimate-flourless-chocolate-cupcakes/

Ingredients
10 1/2 oz bittersweet chocolate chips
1 cup (2 sticks) butter
4 eggs
4 egg yolks
1/2 cup sugar
2 tbsp. Dutch-process cocoa powder (Or whatever you have on hand- I used dark cocoa powder)
1 tsp vanilla extract

Directions
Preheat the oven to 375 and line a muffin tin with 12 paper liners.

Put the chocolate and butter in a double boiler and stir until completely melted. Set aside to cool.

In large bowl, cream the eggs and sugar with an electric mixer. Gently fold in 1/4 of the melted chocolate and remaining ingredients.  Add the reamining chocolate and butter and blend.

Spoon the batter into the cups. Bake for 20 minutes. 

Dark Chocolate Ganache Filling (Top with Whipped Cream frosting, below)
Taken exactly from: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/chocolate-ganache/Detail.aspx

I did not change this recipe, so you can follow the instructions here.  I do not add the optional rum. For these, I let this filling cool for about 45 min and then spooned it into the cored cupcakes. 

Raspberry Filling (Top with Whipped Cream frosting, below)
Taken exactly from: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/emeril-lagasse/raspberry-sauce-recipe/index.html

Whipped Cream Frosting
Taken exactly from: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/whipped-cream-frosting-2/detail.aspx

I did not change this recipe, so you can follow the instructions here.

Turtle Topping
Top cupcakes with chopped pecans and caramel (I used the same recipe that I did for the shortbread bars.)