Hazelnut Mocha Bundt Cake

I swore that the crinkle cookies I posted before Christmas would be the last sweet recipe I would post til at least February! Well, I guess I lied. Because here I am, posting this recipe and it's not even January yet!

I was blessed with 2 amazing sister-in-laws! Thank you God! And this Christmas they both helped make the holiday a little better for my children and one of them gave me a gift I've always wanted..........a fancy bundt pan! I'm serious. I have wanted a bundt pan for a very long time. I don't know what it is about a bundt cake. Maybe it's the fact that they don't need fancy frosting or decorative flowers. The shape alone is fancy enough (to me).

Look at that Hazelnut Chocolate Ganache topping! Mmmmm

So, anyway, I made this bundt cake today with the help of my son. I've hurt my back and actually couldn't lift the bowl of cake mix to pour into the pan let alone whisk the ingredients together. He's a life saver! But, this is an easy cake to make. I have been staying away from packaged cake mixes lately, devoting myself to made from scratch cakes and I'm finding that it's actually fun to measure things and follow a recipe. Speaking of recipe.....here it is!

1 (12 oz) bag semi sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup Nutella plus 3 tablespoons
3/4 cup canola oil
1 cup sugar
1 lg egg
2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1 table spoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup very strong coffee
1 cup buttermilk

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Spray your fancy Bundt pan with non stick spray. I was generous with my spray.
2. In a small sauce pan, melt about 1/4 cup of your chocolate chips over low heat. Stir constantly! Adding your 3 tablespoons of nutella as you go. Once your chocolate is melted pour into a mixing bowl to cool slightly. Make sure you scrape the sides of the pan and get all of the tastey goodness out!
3. Meanwhile, sift your flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt into a separate bowl. Or you can whisk it all together. I like to use my sifter.
4. Now, back to your melted chocolate......whisk in the oil and sugar into your chocolate mixture until smooth. Then add in your egg. Once you have that all mixed add half of your flour mixture and half of the buttermilk and coffee. Mix until smooth and add in the rest of the flour mixture and buttermilk and coffee.
5. Pour your beautiful batter into your bundt pan and bake in the preheated oven for about 40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Once the cake is done, place it on a wire rack to cool for about 8-10 minutes. Do not flip your pan yet!

6. While your cake is cooling enough to flip.......place the remainder of your chocolate chips in your saucepan, melt on low heat. Make sure to stir constantly! As it's melting add your 1/2 cup of Nutella. You can also add a tablespoon of canola oil to the chocolate mixture if you need to loosen it up a bit. When your chocolate is all melted, remove from heat and allow to thicken up a bit. While this is happening, you can flip your cake out of the pan onto your cake plate or whatever you plan on serving the cake on.

Now that you have your cake out of the pan you can pour your chocolate ganache onto your cake! There's no wrong way to do this! Just let it drizzle all over your cake! No need to smear it around. Just let it slide down the sides and look beautiful!

I used very strong coffee for my recipe! You don't have to use strong coffee if you don't want to! It will taste wonderful either way! And I would also like to say that if you're not a Nutella fan, you don't have to use the Nutella at all! You don't even have to substitute anything, just don't use it! But if you didn't know it was in there, you probably wouldn't be able to pick out the taste! The outer edges of this cake has a nice crunch to it while the inside was super moist! I am not ashamed to say that I ate 2 chunks of this cake! Tomorrow when I get up I'll have a small slab with a steaming hot cup of coffee! Breakfast of champions!

Red Velvet Crinkle Cookies

You know I'm on pinterest every chance I get. I think it's a wonderful thing. Do I waste my time by browsing on pinterest? Heck NO! I gather a wealth of inspiration from pinterest! It gets my wheels spinning. Lately, I've been drooling over all of the yummy cookie recipes that everyone has been sharing. Thanks, by the way! If you follow my food board you probably noticed that it wasn't gathering many meal pins lately.....mostly tastey sweets! I'm trying to balance that out but before I do I want to post one more cookie/sweet recipe that I have recently toyed with.

My husband and I married back in August! Ahhhhh! Good times! He didn't have a whole lot to say about the wedding itself. He was more than happy to let me take the reigns and just run away with things. As long as I didn't ask for a lot of money. But, one thing he did say he wanted was a red velvet cake! I had no problem with that! As a matter of fact, there's a local Bakery called Sandra Kay's that makes the best Red Velvet Cake! My mouth is watering just thinking about it! So, I paid her a visit she loaded me up with a couple pieces of her tastey creation to take home to the hubby and believe it or not I managed to save him a bite or two. He fell in love with the cake and gave the thumbs up. So, I ordered our cake! It was small and beautiful. The best part, besides the tastey goodness of it.......It was very affordable! Thank you to my Mother-in-law for paying for it! I love her!

So, anyhooooooo, I keep seeing these wonderful crinkle cookies everywhere on pinterest! What is it about these cookies? I mean, they look so fun! Can cookies look so simple yet fun at the same time because when I look at these cookies I feel happy and knowing that they are somewhat easy to make, well that really makes me happy! I wanted to try to make Red Velvet Crinkle Cookies in honour of my recent nuptials! And this is how I did it:

5 ingredients

You'll need:

A box of Red Velvet Cake Mix

2eggs

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 cup vegetable oil

2 cups powdered sugar


Preheat your oven .....350. Spray your cookie sheet with no-stick spray!

In a mixing bowl, mix the cake mix and baking powder together. I used a fork to make sure all of the lumps of cake mix were eliminated. Otherwise when you finish the next step you'll find it hard to mix it all thoroughly. Now add the eggs and the oil, mix til well blended.

(This is where I assembly line it, if you have an extra pair of hands.) Using a tablespoon, scoop out dough and form into balls. Then drop your dough-balls into a bowl of powdered sugar. Generously coat the balls with the powdered sugar. My son, scooped and formed the balls and I took care of the powdered sugar, making sure the majority of the powdered sugar stays on the balls.

Red Velvet Crinkle Cookies

Place the coated dough balls on your cookie sheet. Bake for about 10-12 minutes. Allow 3-4 minutes for cooling time on the pan. Then remove to a cooling rack. This recipe made just over 3 dozen cookies!

These are the best! Seriously! The powdered sugar gives these the right amount of sweetness. I love sweets but I don't want the sweet taste to overpower the flavor of the cookie and you will certainly not have that issue with these cookies! I hope this inspires you to make cookies. You could make these with any flavor of cake mix. I wouldn't mind trying carrot cake mix! Ooooh!

*Note: After I made these I had a thought. Instead of spraying the cookie sheet with cooking spray, it would be best to use parchment paper since the powdered sugar will soak up the spray! I didn't have parchement paper on hand when I made this batch! But when I made a chocolate version, I did use parchement paper and they turned out so much better!

Show me the Yummy.

So, I'm in the cooking rutt that people find themselves in every once and a while. I find that this happens when I am running low on cash. Being creative with my dollars isn't always easy in a house full of picky eaters. But like my sister says "Picky eating is for rich folks!". And I swear I will make a sign for my kitchen that says just that! lol. It's true! We don't have the luxury to be picky! Take it or leave it for me to eat and get fat on!

Desserts is "Stressed" spelled backwards.

Lately, I have found that pinterest is not just for gazing at Hairstyle how-to's or DIY projects! There are tons of recipes on there! I think I spent an entire hour looking at recipes yesterday! I was so inspired by the time dinner rolled around! BUT I ended up making one of the good  old stand by meals that I know everyone will eat.....Dirty Rice! It was tastey! But not epic! I'm looking for that epic recipe that the whole family will go on and on about, begging me to make it every single day and not only making it each day but making a double batch! That would be great! I can't remember the last time I made that kind of meal! [exhale]

So, I've made a list of recipes that I want to make. These recipes all came from pinterest (but from different blogs)! I'm going to make a few and let you know how they faired! Here's a list of them!

1. Pizza Casserole: made with egg noodles, ground beef, ragu, mozzarella and pepperoni.
2. Chicken Enchiladas with Green sauce: it kinda speaks for itself!
3. Crockpot Ranch house Pork Chops: Dry Ranch Dressing Mix and Chops.....easy!
4. Tater Tot Casserole: Is probably not really a meal but it has ground beef so I'm going to say "MEAL"

Now keep in mind.......Even though those meals don't scream healthy I "veg" them up! Add a little broccoli here and there. Or perhaps you like green beans! My toddler has fallen in love with cooked carrots! I just boil up some baby carrots, add a pat of butter and salt and pepper. She loves them. Even dips them in ketchup! I've recently been on a black eyed pea kick.

Anyway, as soon as I test out these recipes I will let you know how they turn out! In the meantime, check out pinterest for some of your own tastey inspiration! But be careful! It's highly addictive! :) If you look to your right..... above the picture of the adorable kid in clown makeup....you'll see a link to my boards on pinterest!! Follow ME!