Dandy Cake and Happy Mothers' Day

This is the fourth year that I'm celebrating Mothers Day without my mom.  She's been gone that long.  I still feel the void without her and missed her dearly even more so on special days like this.

Happy Mothers Day, Mom!

This cake is called Dandy Cake and since I feel like eating chocolate cake with some nice frosting, decided to make this for myself.  It's chocolate cake frosted with peanut butter and topped with chocolate ganache. This cake is super-dandy-licious.  The peanut butter blends well with chocolate.

It's such a large cake, I shared it with two other moms, my two neighbors!

1 cup water
1 cup (2 sticks) butter
1/3 cup hershey's cocoa powder
2 cups all purpose flour
2 cups sugar (I used 1 1/2 cups fructose)
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
3 eggs
3/4 cup sour cream
3/4 cup creamy peanut butter (I used 1 small tub of chunky peanut butter)
Chocolate Topping: Place 2 cups semi sweet chocolate chips and 2 tbsp butter in a saucepan and heat over simmering water until melted and smooth.

1. Pre heat oven to 180dC and grease and flour 15.5 x 10.5 x 1 inch jelly-roll pan.
2. Combine water, butter and cocoa in small saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until mixture boils.  Boil and stir 1 min, remove from heat and set aside
3. Stir together flour, sugar, baking soda and salt in large bowl. Add eggs, sour cream and beat until well blended. Add cocoa mixture, beat just until blended (batter will be thin). Pour into prepared pan.
4. Bake a 25-30 mins or until cake is done. Do no remove cake from pan.  Spread peanut butter over hot cake and let cool completely.  Prepare chocolate topping and carefully spread over top covering peanut butter. Allow topping to set, cut into squares.

HAPPY MOTHERS DAY TO ALL OF YOU WONDERFUL MOTHERS!  GOD BLESS YOU ALL!

Mango Chocolate Brownie and Strawberry Chocolate Brownie

Have you ever heard of Mango Chocolate or Strawberry Chocolate Brownies?  I, for one, never heard of it.  So, this idea of mine came about as I was kinda itching to make brownies.  You can call it 'spur-of-the-moment-baking itch'!

I wanted to make a different type of brownie with new flavors other than the usual dark chocolate ones.  So out comes my recipe books on brownies.  After browsing through, I decided to try out something new out of my own.  Then I remembered that I have these blocks of flavored chocolates sitting in my refrigerator and before they are totally forgotten, I'd better try at making brownies out of them.  So here are my Mango and Strawberry Chocolate Brownies which you can't get in any bakery except making them your own or stop by my house..lol.  The result?  Amazingly good!  Hubby and kids enjoy them very much and I think my in-laws, my colleagues (yes, friends, you'll get some too tomorrow!) and my neighbor will undoubtedly enjoy them too!

Mango Chocolate Brownie

Strawberry Chocolate Brownie

Here's how it's made.

250g Mango or Strawberry flavored chocolate blocks (you can use any other flavored chocolate ie orange, lemon that you may find near your baking ingredient store)

100g butter

3/4 cup caster sugar (you don't need much as the flavored chocolates are usually quite sweet)

4 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1. Pre-heat oven to 180dC, line baking pan with parchment paper.

2. On a double boiler, melt the flavored chocolate with the butter.  Take off heat and stir in the sugar.  Whisk  to mix well.

3. Add eggs one at a time and whisk till combine and add vanilla.

4. Add in the flour in 2 batches and mix well.

5. Pour into prepared pan and bake for 40-45 mins or until done.

The texture of this brownie is gooey in the inside but crispy at the top.  Love it.  I shall add this recipe to my special book where I record recipes that I created for a 'hand-me-down' to my kids (hopefully they'll take after me at baking and cooking).. :)

Like? Bake it! Kids and adults will love these.

Brownie Bottom Cheesecake

 Are you salivating already?  Well, you should.  This cake is sooooo yummy.  The brownie bottom is so moist, rich with chocolate and the cheese top is very creamy and yet very light.  Truly delicious!  The original recipe uses strawberries dipped in chocolate as the decoration with chocolate drizzle all over the cheese top.  Since I can't find any strawberries, I decided to use canned peaches instead and chocolate curls in the center.  I made this for my dear hubby's birthday yesterday.  I can tell you now, that I will certainly make this again.  My daughter's best friend who is our neighbour's kid, came over today and she never turned down an offer  whenever I cook or bake something.  And when I asked 'Who wants to have a piece of mommy's Brownie Bottom Cheesecake?', well, you guessed it.  My 2 girls and their friend raised their hands and said 'I want, I want'!  (17.02! You want?) wakaakaakakkaaa.....

Brownie Bottom Cheesecake

Brownie Bottom:

1/2 cup/115g unsalted butter, plus extra for greasing

4oz/115g bittersweet chocolate, broken into pieces

1 cup superfine sugar

2 eggs, beaten

1/4 cup milk

1 cup all purpose flour

1. Pre-heat oven to 350F/180C. Lightly grease a 9in round springform cake pan.

2. Melt butter and chocolate in a pan over low heat, stirring frequently until smooth. Remove from heat and beat in the sugar.

3. Add the eggs and milk, beating well, stir in the flour, mixing just until blended. Spoon into prepared pan and bake for 25mins. Remove from oven while preparing the topping. Reduce the oven temperature to 325F/160C.

Topping:

2 1/4 cups/520g cream cheese 

2/3 cup superfine sugar

3 eggs, beaten

1tsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup plain yogurt (I used buttermilk as substitute)

melted chocolate, for drizzling

Strawberries dipped in melted chocolate, to serve.

1. Beat together the cream cheese, sugar, eggs and vanilla extract until well blended.

2. Stir in the yogurt, then pour over the brownie bottom. Bake for an additional 45-55 mins or until the center is almost set.

3. Run a knife around the edge of the cake to loosen from the pan. Let cool before removing from the pan. Chill in refrigerator for 4 hours or overnight before cutting the slices.

4. Drizzle with melted chocolate and serve with chocolate-dipped strawberries.