I am a Honey Bee

All about my adventures with cooking, crafts, and travel

chocolate

Waffle Ice Cream Sandwiches

When I was a kid I used to walk about a half mile to get to the penny candy store. Mr. Fina had a great selection of things like sour belts, lollipops, watermelon sours, and chocolate covered gummy bears. But for just a quarter I used to get these tiny square ice cream sandwiches. Since then I have loved ice cream sandwiches, from the ones that are super soft to chipwiches. I even consider that Choco Taco a pretty decent ice cream sandwich relative.

 

Since I’ve been gluten free, I have had a hard time finding every day treats that are gluten free. I can’t just walk into a convenience store and grab an ice cream sandwich, so I decided to make mine own that I can at least have a home. Waffle ice cream sandwiches just fell into place because I have been heavily relying on them for breakfast, lunch and dinner. For a long time I could not find a gluten free bread I liked so I was using waffles I made in large batches as my bread substitute for sandwiches. So waffles are a pretty neutral flavor, even slightly sweet, so they would work well with ice cream.

 

I have been giving my ice cream maker a decent work out this summer with sorbet so I figured I would actually make some ice cream with it this time. I made a simple vanilla ice cream that I packed with vanilla beans, by using vanilla extract and homemade vanilla sugar. The waffles were simple since I used a mix since it was might convenient for something gluten free, however I highly suggest making waffles from scratch whenever possible. The overall process was really simple, but the thing to keep in mind is the time it takes for the waffles to get COLD. While I think room temperature waffles are acceptable, I think that you run less risk with ice cream melting with really cold waffles.

 

Waffle Ice Cream Sandwiches

Ingredients

For Waffles

  • use your favorite recipe or mix*

For Simple Vanilla Ice Cream (from Cuisinart)

  • 1 cup whole milk
  • ¾ cup granulated sugar
  • pinch salt
  • 2 cups heavy cream
  • 1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract

Instructions

For Waffles:

Follow recipe instructions. Ladle batter into hot waffle iron, cook until waffle is a brown color. Waffle should be slightly crisp. Lay out all waffles, do not stack, allowing to cool and not get soggy from steam. Place waffles in fridge or freezer to get cold.

For Ice Cream:

In a chilled bowl, combine all ingredients using a hand mixer or whisk. Let mixture chill over night or at least one hour. Process the ice cream according to machine’s manufacturer’s instructions. Once the ice cream is formed, transfer to bowl and freeze until the consistency is thicker, but not hard to spread.

Assemble Sandwiches:

Once the waffles are cold, halve with a serrated bread knife. Spread a thick layer of ice cream over one half of waffle. Gently place other waffle portion on top to create sandwich. Immediately place into freezer. Freeze over night, or at least 2 hours, prior to serving,

Optional: 

Melt chocolate in a double boiler. Dip frozen ice cream sandwiches into chocolate, place back into freezer immediately. Freeze for 15 minutes, prior to serving.

*I used Pamela’s Baking and Pancake mix because it’s one of my favorite gluten free mixes

Easter Brownies- Mini Cadbury Creme Egg Brownies

These brownies make for a fantastic Easter treat. The brownie is individually sized so it makes for a great to go treat. The kind of goodie that is easily wrapped and slipped into an Easter basket. Or if you are ‘too old’ for a basket, you can just enjoy them because you are an adult and should have nice things.

 

I really truly love Cadbury Creme Eggs. I love that they are around for such a short period of time. It makes them even more desirable. I stick to the classic creme eggs, just can’t get me to touch their caramel egg. I don’t get the point. It’s like a caramel milky way… oh don’t you mean a caramel filled chocolate bar that is no way similar to a milky way?!? I think that classics should stay classics. So that is why I indulge myself with the creme eggs for this short period of time.

 

The brownies are best eaten right away because it will allow you to bite into the ooey gooey creme egg. The brownie is rich and dense, so the egg will not sink to the bottom. The egg remains intact and is perfect to cut in half. It just looks so sweet.

 

Typically, you test the readiness of a baked good by inserting a tooth pick and if it’s clean upon removal the cake it done. However, you can’t insert a tooth pick into the center of this treat because it would provide an inaccurate picture of it’s doneness because you would be testing the melty egg, and not the brownie. The brownies are so small that gently touching the top will be a good enough indicator.

 

Mini Cadbury Creme Egg Brownies

*makes 6 brownies*

Ingredients

  • 4oz bittersweet chocolate
  • 6oz butter
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 1/4 cup self-rising flour
  • 6 mini Cadbury creme eggs

Process

  1. Preheat oven to 350. Line 6 muffin cups.
  2. Melt the chocolate and butter together in a double boiler, or over very low heat. Cool.
  3. In a medium size bowl, combine the sugar and egg
  4. Slowly add the chocolate mixture into the egg mixture.
  5. Add in the flour and gently combine.
  6. Divide the batter evenly into the 6 liners. Put 1 egg inside each brownie, slightly less than half should remain exposed.
  7. Bake for 13-15 minutes. Top should appear done while egg is soft looking.

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Oreo Chocolate Chip Cookies

I have been stumbling upon posts about cookies inside cookies throughout my Google reader lately. ummm cookies inside cookies? Yep, imagine a cookie inside another cookie- either mixed in or fully enveloped. Simple, delicious, addicting.

Some of the best sounding, looking, and addicting sounding ones have come from the blog Lovin’ From the Oven. She first had a cookie inside a cookie recipe posted last April but then posted another recently in February. After seeing the second recipe, which included an entire oreo inside a chocolate chip cookie, I decided that I would have to go back to the older recipe because the likely hood of me eating 3 cookies would just spell trouble. Having 3 of the Oreo Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies would be like having 6 cookies and that would be heart stopping. So I opted for the slightly more figure faltering recipe that just had pieces of Oreo’s incorporated into it.

I’ve made these cookies 4 times now. They are really quick to whip up. You barely even need to break apart the Oreo cookies before adding them into the dough mixer as you stand mixer will do the work for you. The more you mix the smaller the pieces of Oreo that remain, this will result in a more uniform texture cookie that tastes a lot like cookies and cream. If you just mix the cookies until they are combined, which I prefer, they have much more texture and have more pockets of Oreo flavor.

Oreo Chocolate Chip Cookies

makes 4 doz 2″ cookies

2 sticks softened butter
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup light brown sugar
2 eggs
1 Tablespoon vanilla
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
25 Oreo Cookies broken into large pieces
2 cups chocolate chips

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Preheat oven to 350.

Sift together the flour, baking soda,  and salt. Set aside.

Cream together the butter and the sugars. Once that mixture is light and fluffy add the eggs, one at a time. When eggs are jsut combined, add in the vanilla. Gently mix until just incorportated.

Add in the sifted dry ingredients slowly until just incorporated. Add the chocolate chips and Oreo pieces. The Oreo’s will break up as the cookie dough is mixed together.

On a non stick baking sheet, spoon out 1 1/2- 1 3/4″ dollops. Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until golden brown and just set. Remove from oven, let the sheet sit for 1-2 minutes before removing cookie to cool on a cooling rack.

Snowman Cupcakes

I have not been the holiday mood this year. We don’t even have a tree. We just have a simple advent calendar I made but it keeps falling down. Go figure. The only ornaments I have up are at my office on my cube. (I do love looking that them all day- Thanks Erin!)

So I have been a bit Grinchy lately and I decided that I had to get out of this by making something fun. What’s better than cupcakes? Cupcakes topped with snowmen! I’m not a big fan of the cucpakes that are filed high with frosting so I decided to use marshmallows for the snowmen. And I’d use chocolate covered pretzels as twiggy arms. hehe

So began my baking at 5.45am on Wed morning. I prepped the night before but I did not feel like baking then so I just decided to make them in the morning. I made a chocolate cupcake with an eggnog frosting. The chocolate was the frozen ground, frosting was the fresh snow where the happy snowmen sat.

These little guys were well received in my office. We were totally maxed out on sweets with a lot of furniture vendors giving us brownies, cookies, candy, cake, and pie, but some people made room for them or brought them home to their kids.

Snowmen Cupcakes

recipe makes 24 cupcakes

Chocolate Cupcake

1/2 cup of unsweetened cocoa power
3/4 cup of coffee
1/2 cup of cold milk
1 tablespoon of vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups of flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 /2 teaspoon salt
2 sticks of unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
1 1/2 cups of sugar
3 large eggs
6 ounces of unsweetened chocolate, melted.
 

Preheat oven to 350. Line 2 12-cup cupcake pans with liners.

Combine the first 4 ingredients together in a small bowl, set side.

Combine the flour, baking soda, and salt together, set aside.

Using a mixer, beat the butter and sugar together until creamy.

Add the eggs to the butter/sugar mixture one at a time. Beat in the melted chocolate, mix thoroughly.

Add in the dry ingredients in thirds, alternating with the liquid ingredients.

Mix all until thoroughly combined. Divide the batter evenly into the 24 cupcake liners.

Bake 16-20 minutes, or until a toothpick is cleanly removed.

Once the cupcakes have cooled frost them and decorate.

 

Eggnog Frosting

2 sticks of unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup eggnog
approximately 1 1/2 pounds of confectioners sugar
 

With a mixer, beat the butter until it is light and fluffy. Add in the vanilla  extract and continue to beat it.

Add in 1/2 the eggnog and then add in small batches of confectioners sugar. As the frosting begins to combine, add in the rest of the eggnog and then add enough sugar to reach the desired consistency.

 

Snowmen

12 10″ skewers, cut in half
72 marshmallows (2 packages)
Black and Orange- foodoodlers, gel icing, or markers
24 chocolate covered pretzels (1 package of Flipz is enough)
 

Using a scissor, cut all dowels in half to get 24 “spines” for the snowmen.

Put 3 marshmallows on each skewer. Do not pierce the end of the top marshmallow since it is the head.

Draw face on top marshmallow.

Cut 2 pretzel arms from each pretzel. Using a paring knife or scissor, cut 2 deep slits on each side of the middle marshmallow. Insert each arm into knife slit, marshmallow will “self heel” around pretzel arm.

Insert 1 snowman into each cupcake.

**If you don’t have edible food markers (aka foodoodlers), or forget your stuff at home like me, just use a marker and warn people about the top marshmallow.**

Warning: Highly Addictive “Muddy Buddies”

It’s always amusing when I bring cake or other goodies into work or school and I watch people attract to it like a swarm of bees. Buzzing around getting their sugar fix and asking how I made it. I was once carrying around some cake to class and someone stopped me and asked about it. Well I shared some slices with him and a friend and as he ran away with his ‘dinner’ he yelled back to me “Thanks Sugar Fairy!!” (new favorite nickname) Well, this happened again yesterday since we had our monthly staff meeting and I brought in Muddy Buddies.

Not familiar with Muddy Buddies? Maybe you’ve heard of Puppy Chow? Still no? Well, imagine a simple piece of Chex cereal becoming host to a chocolate, peanut butter, and butter mixture, and then covered in powered sugar. This simple had just taking a drastic turn into the realm of high addictive pop in your mouth foods.

Simple to make with just a few ingredients. Some melting, stirring and then shaking. Plus if you do it right (not like me) you won’t have many dishes involved in there. A bowl for melting, a big bowl for mixing, a spoon for mixing. Use a BIG ziploc bag and things are really easy then. If you are making a few batches, or like me using 3 boxes of Chex cereal, then be prepared with a few ziploc baggies. Trust me, it makes it a lot easier to use a few than try to resue them a few times. The recipe said to let the Chex cool down after the bounce in the bag but I felt that mine was not too hot and did not need to be laid out on a parchment paper coated cookie sheet.

Chex Muddy Buddies

9 cups of Chex rice or Corn cereal (or a combination)
1 cup of semi sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup of creamy peanut butter
1/4 cup of butter
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
1 /2 cups of powdered sugar

1) In a large bowl, measure cereal, set aside.

2) In a microwave safe bowl, put the chocolate, peanut butter, and butter together. Microwave on High for 1 minute. Stir mixture. Continue to microwave and stir in 30 second intervals until the mixture is smooth. Add the vanilla extract.

3) Evenly pour the mixture of the Chex cereal and mix together until cereal is evenly covered.

4) Transfer to a large (2 gal) resealable plastic bag. Add the powdered sugar, seal, and gently shake until covered.

5) Store in an airtight container in the fridge or freezer.

Bacon-Chocolate Chip Waffles

Yep, that’s right… Bacon Chocolate Chip Waffles! I read about this recipe at Coconut Lime. I knew that I had to make it for our 5 year anniversary (1/2). It’s not that it was going to be complicated or fancy, just new and indulgent. I wanted to step things up from the typical scrambled egg, toast, yogurt, or leftovers (yes, leftovers.. in fact I had left over chicken tika masala on new years day.) So waffles and some Bailey’s would make for a better Saturday morning.

 

Bacon is a big deal right now. In fact I gifted bacon jam at Christmas. I have not yet tried the jar I kept for us, but I think the whole thing is just hilarious. Bacon in a waffle was quiet ingenious. Plus the chocolate is a perfect complement to it- sweet and salty are always great together. I have had a bacon chocolate bar from Vosges in NYC.

 

The waffles were simple to make and came out really well. The combination of chocolate and bacon provided a great balance of salty and sweet in the waffle. The bacon added a nice smokeiness to the waffle. I would not expect to enjoy smokey in my waffles but it was great. Even though we clearly knew there was bacon and chocolate in them it was still so surprising when we were eating them. Def out of the ordinary, but def worth a try! My only suggestion to this is to use the mini chocolate chips, and I say that only because my waffle iron did not seem to enjoy closing with the regular chips.

Bacon Chocolate Waffles

Makes 4 servings

Ingredients

  •  2 cups of all-purpose flour
  • 1 tablespoon sugar
  • 1 tablespoon baking powder
  • pinch of salt
  • 2 cups of buttermilk* 2 tablespoons canola oil
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 2 eggs
  • 1/4 cup crumbled bacon
  • 1/3 cup semi sweet chocolate chips

Process

  1. Whisk the dry ingredients together in a medium-sized bowl.
  2. Whisk together the egg, oil, vanilla and buttermilk in a small bowl.
  3. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir to combine.
  4. Fold in the chocolate chips and crumbled bacon.
  5. Follow the instructions included with your waffle iron to complete the waffles.
  6. *If you don’t have buttermilk on hand you can make your own with 1 tablespoon of lemon juice or apple cider vinegar for every cup of milk and let it sit for 5 minutes

Recipe from Coconut Lime

Chipotle Chocolate Cupcakes

I saw the Spicy Chipotle Chocolate Cake from What We’re Eating and have wanted to do it for awhile. I love Mexican hot chocolate so I thought they that I would enjoy this too. Our friend Essa is going back to Egypt to sort some Visa issues out so decided to make these his ‘pot luck good luck send off’.

It was fun to bring them to the pot luck dinner because I was able to have quite a few reviews of it. Everyone liked them but they liked the cake and frosting seperately. The cake gave you a hint of chili about the 3rd bite in, a slow mellow burn. They could not taste any nutella in the frosting, just cream cheese.  But people like the frosting since they were eating it out of the mixing bowl (frosting them there made transporting them a bit easier!). I will try it again with a plain chocolate buttercream frosting so the cream cheese does not battle with the chipotle. Such a good cake, I know I’ll make it again.Amanda had a great idea with the chili/chocolate combination. So good!

I made changes to the recipe to work for cupcakes and my convection oven. (You may refer to the original recipe here)

Chipotle Chocolate Cupcakes

Makes 24 cupcakes
2 sticks butter, unsalted
10 oz semi-sweet chocolate chips
5 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp chipotle chili powder
 
For Frosting
16 oz cream cheese, room temperature
6 oz nutella
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
3/4 cup powdered sugar, sifted
1/3 cup milk, plus extra as needed

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.  Line 24 cups in cupcake pans with wrappers. Set aside.

In a medium size bowl, sift together the salt, flour, baking powder & chipotle chili powder. Set aside.

In a large mixing bowl/stand mixer, combine the eggs and sugars. Beat until the sugars have completely dissolved into the eggs and the mixture begins to thicken- 3-5 minutes.

While the egg/sugar mixture is mixing, melt the butter in a double boiler. Once the butter has melted, add the chocolate chips. Stir until all chocolate has melted. Do not burn chocolate. Remove from heat.

Once the egg and butter mixture has thicken fold in the dry ingredients. Add the vanilla extract and chocolate-butter mixture into the batter. Fold to incorporate. Batter will be thin

Divide the batter evenly among the cupcake lines. Bake at 325 for 25-30 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. (If it comes out with any gooey batter, let the cake bake longer, as needed.) Remove the cupcakes from the oven and place on a wire rack to cool. Cool for at least 2 hours before frosting, store frosted cupcakes in a cool place/refrigerator. Once cooled, the cupcakes may be covered and stored at room temperature for a day before frosting.

Making the Frosting:

Using a larger bowl and electric beater or standmixer beat the the cream cheese and nutella into until light and fluffy. Sift in the cocoa powder and powdered sugar. Add the milk then then gently beat to incorporate. Beat until the frosting is light and fluffy. Frost cupcakes!