chocolate | Adventures in Thyme

Mudslide Pudding Pie

July 30, 2015 by Ginger Leave a Comment

Mudslide Pudding Pie

So there I was, enduring another abominable day at work, chomping carrot sticks like I was crushing the heads of my enemies when I came across a mudslide pudding shot recipe. (Yes, I daydream of cocktails at work and Google is my partner in crime.) The recipe was straight forward, and seemed to be replicated across a dozen foodie sites and a darling of Pinterest boards – but the serving was so small! That teensy little pudding cup…it needed to be supersized to exorcise my demons. So hide the scale, banish calorie counting and get ready for something over the top – Mudslide Pudding Pie.

For the filling:

1 cup cold milk (you could use 2% but why bother)
1 3.9oz package of chocolate pudding
3 oz Kahlua
3 oz Bailey’s Irish Cream
8 oz Cool Whip
1 chocolate pie crust
optional: shaved chocolate from dark chocolate bar (I used a 60% cacao bar)

Super easy – AND you can eat the batter without fear of salmonella. Hello?! The best tip I have for this recipe is to leave your cool whip in the fridge a few hours before you incorporate it into this recipe, you’ll want it fairly soft. To begin: Whisk together the milk and pudding mix until all the lumps are gone. Whisk in the Kahlua and Baileys, then carefully fold in the Cool Whip. There will be a few lumps, just gently fold these down. Pour into a chocolate pie crust until it reaches almost to the crust top. You will have a bit of filling left over, so you can make some petite pudding shots if you’re willing. (I just sat with the bowl in my lap and watched Sharknado 3 with a happy pudding smile on face.) At this point you can artistically scatter chocolate shavings on your pie, or forego this step and just place your pie in the freezer. I let mine sit for 24 hours before serving. The pudding will warm fairly rapidly so remove from the freezer only when you’re ready to cut a piece. Enjoy!

Christmas Oatmeal Cookies

January 1, 2015 by Dan Leave a Comment

oatmeal cookies

If you’re reading this post you’ve survived the holidays, congratulations! We have emerged from our food comas too to share with you one of our Christmas family traditions – baking a “goodie”. We bake lots of goodies going into the Christmas season, and this one is a favorite that combines healthy oats with dried fruits and nuts. Oh there’s chocolate of course, what would it be without that?!

Our recipe started as Quaker Oats “Vanishing Oatmeal Raisin Cookies” recipe at http://www.quakeroats.com/cooking-and-recipe/vanishing-oatmeal-raisin-cookies.aspx , we tweaked it a bit to put a little tingle in your kingle. Enjoy!

1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) Butter, softened
1 1/2 cups packed Dark Brown Sugar
1 cup Granulated Sugar
4 Eggs
2 teaspoons Real Vanilla Extract
3 cups All-purpose Flour
2 teaspoons Baking Soda
2 teaspoons Cinnamon
1 teaspoon Salt
6 cups Quick Quaker® Oats
2 cups Dried Cranberries
1 10 oz package Dark Chocolate Chips
1 12 oz package Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips
2 cups chopped Pecans

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Use your mixer to cream together the butter and sugars. Add the eggs (1 at a time) and then the vanilla. Beat until well combined.

In a separate bowl, mix well the flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. (You can also sift this together if you like.)

Slowly, a little at a time, add the dry ingredients to your wet ingredients. (At this point, the batch was too big for our mixer, so we had to move to a large metal mixing bowl and finish mixing by hand).

Now add the oats, cranberries, chocolate chips and pecans. Mix until evenly combined. (This part took both of us, one to hold the bowl and one to mix.)

Drop by round teaspoonsful onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Use your fingers or a spoon to press them into flat disks. These will not flatten out on their own. Bake until golden, about 8 to 10 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool on the cookie sheet for a minute or two. Move to a cooling rack and let cool.

We made just over 10 dozen small cookies with this recipe – enough to hand out for unexpected guests and of course a few to leave for Santa Claus.

The Fudge Factor

December 11, 2013 by Dan Leave a Comment

Chocolate Fudge

Familiar with the old saying, “Families are like fudge, a little sweet with a few nuts”? This is also true about our fudge (and our family BTW, okay TMI, back to the fudge…).

This is an old family recipe, going back at least 50 years, and each Christmas the faded index card comes out and fudge is made, and handed out to friends and family.

So our gift to you, the super secret family recipe. Happy Holidays!

2 Cups Sugar
12-14 Large Marshmallows
2/3 cup evaporated milk (1 small can, not sweetened condensed milk)
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (you can substitute butter scotch, mint chocolate, etc., it takes longer to set up though)
1 cup chopped pecans (you can substitute walnuts)
1/4 pound butter (1 stick)
1 teaspoon Vanilla

Combine sugar, marshmallows and canned milk in a large cast iron or stainless steel skillet. (Do not use non-stick, you will scratch it.) Bring mixture to a boil over medium to medium high heat, stirring constantly with a wire spring whisk. (The spring whisk will stir to the bottom of the pan and keep the mixture from sticking and burning.)_ Boil for 2 minutes.

Remove from heat and pour over the chocolate chips, nuts and butter. Add the vanilla. Beat by hand with a wooden spoon until it is of a spreading consistency (it will be relatively cool by that point, butter scotch and some other flavors won’t get as think and may need to be refrigerated to set up completely.) DO NOT use an electric mixer, you will get a very good chocolate sauce but it will never set up.

Pour the fudge into a greased 8×8 or 9×9 inch square pan. Let set over night. Cut into 3/4 to 1 inch squares and remove from pan.

Yumminess from Homage Bakery

October 16, 2013 by Dan Leave a Comment

Chocolate Goodness

This is one of the fantastic desserts from Homage Bakery in Reno, NV, pictured with some of the ingredients.

How I would LOVE to know the recipe for this delectible mouthwatering little piece o’heaven. I wish I could tell you that I ate it slowly, reflecting on something profoundly worthwhile or noble, but alas no, I gobbled this chocolate bomb like a 4 year old, with wanton abandon and no thought to my waistline or daily calorie count. I soared as high as my blood sugar took me, then I napped, quietly contented like a cat on a forbidden Lazy Boy chair. Thank you Homage, it was worth every crumb!

If you’re in the area, stop in and get something irresistible! These are really nice people who make AWESOME pastries.