This is a moist, dense, chewy dark chocolate brownie with a smoky-spicy-sweet raspberry swirl.  I would say it is a great combination but it is more than that. It is just so good.

The chipotle makes these have a little “bite ya back” in the after taste and the smoke flavor adds an interesting layer of flavor.  It sort of deepens the chocolate and gives it an extra layer and depth of flavor.Fischer and Weiser Raspberry Chipotle Sauce is available at Tom Thumb/Safeway stores and I think my daughter says it is available at Wal-mart.  It is a little expensive (6.95) but the sauce is so good, and you use so little of it, that it is worth it.

Raspberry Chipotle Intense Chocolate Brownies

• 3/4 c unsalted butter-melted
• 1 1/2 c sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 3/4 c flour
• 1/2 c cocoa (the darkest you can find…do not substitute baking chocolate)
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 cup Fischer and Wieser Raspberry Chipotle

1. Cream sugar, melted butter until smooth. Add eggs one at a time. beat well. add flavorings.
2. Quickly stir in dry ingredients.
3. Spread into a greased 9 inch pan.
4. Using the back of a small spoon, drag it through the top of the batter to make indentations.  Think of it as dry creekbeds.
5. Now fill the indentations with the raspberry chipotle and swirl lightly
6. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes. Leave slightly under done.

Image: Marye Audet

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Chocolate. Yum.  I love it.  It is one of the basic four food groups for me.  Chocolate, Coffee, Tea, and Triple Bacon Cheeseburgers from Whataburger with mayo not mustard..

I know.   And the triple bacon cheese burgers? I don’t get them a lot.  My middle aged metabolism will not allow it.  However, chocolate is readily available most of the time here.  I had not made a cake in awhile and I have been looking through my old cookbooks in search of a recipe for devils food cake.  I have made many but I am, like many of you, always looking for that one that is better than the rest.  I think this one came close.

I found it in an old book I had picked up at a thrift shop.  I made a few adjustments to it. Hmmm…very chocolaty. VERY.  Don’t let it cool int he pan too long, 10-15 minutes at most. I made the mistake of allowing it to cool while I blogged, lost track of time, and it stuck in the pan. That is why it looks a little ragged in the pictures.

I used the Bittersweet Chocolate Frosting from my Checkerboard Cake recipe.  It was perfect.

If you are not reading this on Baking Delights (http://bakingdelights.com) not only are you reading stolen material but  you don’t know what you might be missing.

Devil’s Food Cake 

Makes 3  9- inch layers

3/4 c  cocoa (I used half hershey’s special dark)

1 egg

1 c sugar

1 c buttermilk

Mix together and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until mixture coats the back of a metal spoon.  Cool to room temperature.

Mix

2c flour

1/4 tsp salt

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

Set aside.

Cream 3/4 c unsalted butter, and 1 c sugar together until light and fluffy. Add 2 eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each.  Add 1 tsp vanilla.

Add chocolate mixture.

Now,  add mixed, dry ingredients in 3 parts, alternating with 1/2 buttermilk. Begin and end with the dry ingredients.

Spoon equally in 3 greased and floured pans and bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes or until done. Cool 10 minutes in pan, turn out and finish cooling.

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What kind of thing? You will have to check back. You should be out of your chocolate coma by then.

O.k. These are from Epicurious. They are…incredible. This is definitly a case for saving the best for last.

For hazelnut base
Unsweetened cocoa powder for dusting
1 cup hazelnuts, toasted, loose skins rubbed off with a kitchen towel, and cooled
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 stick ( 1/4 cup) unsalted butter
6 oz fine-quality bittersweet chocolate (not unsweetened), finely chopped
2 large whole eggs

For ganache
2 large egg yolks
1 cup heavy cream
1/8 teaspoon salt
12 oz fine-quality bittersweet chocolate (not unsweetened), finely chopped

Make hazelnut base:
Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter bottom and sides of an 8-inch square metal baking pan, then dust with cocoa powder, knocking out excess. Finely grind nuts in a food processor with flour, sugar, and salt.

Melt butter in a 2-quart saucepan, then remove from heat. Add chocolate and whisk until smooth. Add eggs 1 at a time, whisking until smooth. Stir in nut flour until just combined.

Spread batter evenly in baking pan and bake in middle of oven until top is firm and dry and a tester inserted into center comes out with crumbs adhering, 15 to 20 minutes. Cool completely in pan on a rack, at least 2 hours.

Make ganache:
Lightly beat yolks in a bowl. Bring cream with salt just to a boil in a small heavy saucepan, then add half of it to yolks in a slow stream, whisking constantly. Whisk yolk mixture into remaining cream and cook over low heat, whisking, until slightly thickened and an instant-read thermometer registers 170°F (do not let boil).

Remove from heat and add chocolate, whisking until smooth. Pour ganache over hazelnut base in pan, smoothing top with offset spatula, and chill, covered, until firm, at least 5 hours.

Cut into squares with a warmed thin knife, wiping off knife after each cut, and remove from pan while still cold.

Serve truffles cold or at room temperature.

Epicurious.com © CondéNet, Inc. All rights reserved.

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I have a son who loves rocky road ice cream. When I make ice cream he is in the pantry pulling out marshmallows, walnuts, chocolate chips, and anything else he thinks he can get away with trying to get me to throw in there. When I heard that we were going ot have a picnic after church last Sunday I was trying to decide what type of chocolate to supply our pastor with ( he loves chocolate almost as much as I do) and I thought about these rocky road brownies. Perfect!

They must have hit the spot they disappeared before I got to them.

These are sweetly intense little chocolate explosions in your mouth. I use cocoa rather than melted chocolate for brownies because I like the texture better and I do think you get a deeper chocolate flavor that way. This is for a 9″ square pan…I doubled everything but the glaze and used a 9×13. The glaze recipe, by the way, is something I use alot.

Speaking of sweetly intense…. the Home and Dining Channel at B5 is rockin’ this Autumn with some cool contests and just general fun stuff. Be sure to check back so you don’t miss out.There will be The Home & Dining channel’s AMAZING scavenger hunt in October. The prize is …well ….AWESOME so be sure you land here every day next month.

And don’t forget to check Baking Delights daily this week for the Brownie Extravaganza! LOL! OH! Speaking of all the awesomeness that IS B5’s H&D Channel experience..Check out Heather’s new blog about pets, The Food Bowl, 

Rocky Road Brownies

Glaze

Glaze

1/2 c unsalted butter melted

1/2 c Hersheys Special Dark cocoa

1/2 c confectioners sugar, give or take.

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Chocolate. I like chocolate. I like dark chocolate. I like milk chocolate. I like white chocolate. Chocolate covered cherries…chocolate covered strawberries..chocolate covered raisins…no chocolate covered grasshoppers though.

We host a home group meeting every Wednesday night for our church…Some of you may know them as small groups, or cell groups.  The thing is that if you have people from church coming over, with the possibility of the pastor dropping by, you want to have your house sparkling like..well, sparkling. You want the kids to be perfect, preferably with one of their GOOD school papers laying out in an obvious place so you can yell, ” Thoreau! Get this report on Nuclear Fusion and It’s Role in the Da Vinci Code off the coffee table right now!”…and you want a really awesome dessert. Seriously awesome. A dessert that causes the pastor to mention it in his sermon on Sunday. Thus, chocolate.

Not that I am the type of person to kiss up like that.

Anyway..this cake was good but I felt like it needed something to make it more intense so I changed the amounts of cocoa, added Hershey’s Special Dark cocoa rather than the normal (you can get it on Amazon if it isnt available locally..and it is worth it.) , added chocolate chips, and the praline chipotle glaze rather than plain chocolate.

and this is what was left after the meeting…..

Incredible Chocolate Bundt Cake with Chipotle Praline

10-12 servings

1 c hersheys special dark cocoa

2 c strong coffee

2 sticks of butter (unsalted)

1 1/2 c sugar

1/2 c brown sugar

2 c flour

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

2 large eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1/3 c milk chocolate chips

1/3 c dark chocolate chips

1/3 c semi sweet chocolate chips

Grease bundt pan and dust with 2 tbs of cocoa. Preheat oven to 325F.

Mix flour, baking soda, and salt  and set aside.

Heat coffee to boiling and stir in butter and cocoa, whisking until smooth. Let cool a bit. Stir in vanilla

Mix sugars and eggs in mixer until fluffy, add coffee mixture alternating with flour mixture. Stir in chocolate chips.

Pour into bundt pan and bake for 40-50 minutes, or until cake tests done. Let cool 10 minutes. Invert pan on cake plate and leave until cool. remove bundt pan. Spoon warm glaze over cake.

Glaze:

1/4 c unsalted butter, melted

1/4 c brown sugar

stir together in pan over medium heat until sugar is no longer grainy. Remove from heat and add:

2 tsp dried chipotle (chopped,not powdered)

1/4 c coarsely chopped walnuts or pecans, almonds, hazlenuts, pistachios, or whatever.

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  These brownies are getting closer to what I am looking for, altho I would like them to be a bit more moist and chewy. The flavor is right though…What happens is that there is some kind of magic that happens in the oven  between the cinnamon, the dark chocolate and the smokey chipotle and when they come out…yum.  I was sitting here trying to think how to describe it and I just can’t…very sophisticated and complex, not too sweet, the dark chocolate convinces your mouth that you have just bitten into a delicious, but predictible brownie and then the cinnamon sort of pulls you in to the chipotle and all of a sudden you are doing the macarena…

  Well not really..but you need to try these.

 The chocolate chipotle brownies have a spicy heat that can sneak up on you..make a plain batch for the kids…

2 squares unsweetened baking chocolate

6 tbs Hershey’s Special dark cocoa

1 c unsalted butter

2 c sugar

3 eggs

1 tsp mexican vanilla

1 c flour

1 tsp cinnamon

2-4 tbs finely chopped dried chipotle

1 c chocolate chips

Preheat oven:325

Grease 13×9 pan

microwave chocolate and butter in a microwave safe bowl until butter is melted..stir to mix and make smooth..add cocoa and mix until smooth

stir in sugar until well blended and not grainy. Mix in eggs and vanilla. Stir in flour, cinnamon and chocolate chips. Spread in pan.

 Bake 30 -35 minutes or until set, toothpick inserted in center will come out with a few moist crumbs. 

let cool and cut into squares.   Makes 24

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Marc has a sweet tooth. Actually, I suspect it is more like a prehistoric fang although I see no evidence of it…well other than the constant intake of large hershey bars, twizzlers, whoppers, ice cream and anything with sugar in it that I create.  Luckily for him he is 6′6″ and works really hard to keep his weight hovering around a very muscular 200 lbs.  There are times that I do consider divorcing him to marry someone who has to diet, at least long enough to lose my own extra weight…

 Not really.

   I wanted to make him a special dessert for Father’s Day. In going through his favorites I remembered it had been some time since I had made a Boston Cream pie and I thought that might bejust the thing..but I wanted soemthing a little different….

  I made my favorite pound cake recipe in a loaf pan, sliced i into 4 layers horizontally, sprinkled the cake layers with coffee, put on a layer of chocolate, a layer of creme patisserie, and then repeated starting with a cake layer. I wanted to serve mine last night so I popped it in the freezer a few hours but I strongly suggest you allow it to chill and set up over night..I got one really good slice out of it for photography purposes (God is good, I was praying..) but the rest were messy..but delicious.

The cake is from a vintage cookbook, Cooking FOr American Homemakers, and I just love it. It is not as old as some I have but it is extensive and includes such delicacies as opossum and raccoon.. (yuck).

Thrifty Pound Cake

3 c cake flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp freshly grated nutmeg

1/4 tsp salt

1 c unsalted butter

1 1/2 c sugar

1 tbs vanilla

1/2 tsp almond extract

3 eggs

1/2 c milk

sift dry ingredients together.  Cream butter and sugar until fluffy and add eggs one at a time beating until well incorporated. Add dry ingredients and milk alternating between the two and starting and ending with the flour .

Spoon into a greased oaf pan and bake 60 minutes at 350.  Cool thoroughly.

Creme Patisserie 

2 egg yolks

2 1/2 c half and half  ( I used goats milk..it has such a lot of cream)

1/4 c flour

pinch salt

3/4 c sugar

1 tsp vanilla

2 TBS butter

mix everything except vanilla and butter in a microwave safe dish and microwave until thick, stirring every minute.  Remove from micowave and let cool slightly before adding the butter and vanilla  and stirring in….cover with greased wax paper and chill.

Chocolate

12 oz dark chocolate

2 Tbs butter

2 Tbs light corn syrup

 Melt together in microwave..stir until smooth. Use warm.

To Assemble:

Place plastic wrap in loaf pan so it covers bottom and sides and there is enough on each side to totally wrap the cake when you are finished with the layers.Spray with cooking spray.

  Place the bottom layer in the lined pan and sprinkle with coffee, then smooth on a layer of chocolate and finally cover with part of the cream. carefully lay on a second layer and repeat until all layers are on. Cover the top layer with chocolate and sliced almonds..You will need to have someone hold up the sides ofthe plastic to support the top layer. Wrap the plastic tightly around the cake and chill over night.

  Using the plastic, pull out of the pan and slice carefully.

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   These cookies are some that I came up with when our local grocery had toffee pieces on clearance for almost nothing.  They are sooo good….

• 1/2 c unsalted butter
• 1/2 c butter flavored crisco OR spectrum organic shortening 
• 3/4 c white sugar
• 3/4 c brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 tbs mexican vanilla
• 2 c flour
• 1/2 c hershey’s dark cocoa
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 c white chocolate chips
• 1/2 c pecans or walnuts
• 1 c heath bar chopped up or toffee pieces

1. Cream butter, crisco, sugars, eggs and vanilla until light and fluffy
2. Add dry ingredients
3. Fold in chips, nuts, and toffee.
4. Chill for 30 minutes.
5. Drop by tsp on silpat or lightly greased cookie sheets
6. Bake for 8-10 minutes until just barely done
7. Cool
8. About 4 doz depending how much of the dough you eat
9. *I dont like using the crisco and sometimes I will use all butter but all butter will make the cookies flatter.. I have also recently started using organic shortening (no trans fats) and I really like it.

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This are fantastic. My 11 year old wanted to bake yesterday and she asked if she could experiment a bit. Of course,the answer was yes, so she used the dark chocolate chips I had just picked up..There were some oranges left in the fruit bowl (a total miracle in our house) and I suggested she try some orange in with it. The results were an absolutely intensely flavored cookie..the dark chocolate was complimented by the orange in an absolutely sophitcated synergy of sweet/intense/tangy.

One on a stormy afternoon with a cup of earl grey would be a perfect *me* moment.

1/2 c butter
1/2 c butter flavor shortening
3/4 c white sugar
3/4 c light brown sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp mexican vanilla
grated rind from one orange
juice from one orange
2 1/4 c all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 cups Hershey’s Special Dark chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350.
Silpat cookie sheets, use parchment, or grease lightly
Cream the butter, shortening, brown sugar, white sugar, orange juice, and vanilla until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time beating well after each addition.Combine the dry ingredients and the orange peel and stir in to the creamed mixture. fold in chocolate chips lightly and chill for 20 minutes or so.
Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls on baking sheet and bake 8-10 minutes until light golden brown and still soft, but set in the middle. Let cool on the cookie sheet for 5 minutes and then remove to cooling rack or counter. 3-4 dozen cookies.

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