Chocolate Overload

There really is nothing better than the smell of  freshly baked chocolate goodies. That's what my kitchen smelled like today. I think that's what heaven must smell like also...at least I hope so.

Since I had double the occasion to bake today (Amy's birthday and my mom having some friends over) I decided to make cookies AND brownies. I spent the morning browsing recipes and came up with:

1) Double Chocolate Cookies (from Treasury of Home Baking). These were really, really good. All my friends loved them. It was a little time consuming, and they turned out super thin and sort of stuck to the baking sheet. After they were done cooking, the recipe said to dip half in melted chocolate, but the cookies were too fragile so I ended up just drizzling chocolate on top, which worked perfectly. They did take a really long time to set-up, and since they were so thin they sort of fell apart on me. The taste, however, was great. 

The cookies took a while to make because the dough had to set for half an hour in the fridge so I made the dough, put it in the fridge and while that was chilling I made the brownies. The timing worked out really well.

2) Chunky Chocolate Brownies. I used toasted hazelnuts. I wish I hadn't. I'm actually not a huge fan of hazelnuts (I think they have sort of a funny aftertaste) and these would have been better with walnuts---or nothing at all. The texture was great, they were really fudgy and good, and next time I make them I think I'll omit the nuts entirely. They're really rich and chocolate-y and though the recipe says it makes 9, I got 16 decently sized brownies out of them.

So today was filled with way too much chocolate (including a few too many m&m nibbles, and a slight devouring of some chocolate-raspberry birthday cake) so tomorrow will for sure be a "back on the healthy boat" day of eating. No new recipes unfortunately though because nobody is going to be home for dinner at the same time and there are still leftovers in the fridge.

These treats were definitely a great indulgence--especially those chocolate cookies!

Pretend dessert.

Well, to start, Sarah's recent salmon dish looks SO good! I too am a HUGE salmon fan..its just versatile, easy and always delicious. Mm.

Anyways, yesterday I made "inside-out carrot cake cookies" from a recipe I found on Epicurious (LOVE it) http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/INSIDE-OUT-CARROT-CAKE-COOKIES-109346 I know, I know, carrot cake??? But, I wanted to make something as a thank you to a friend, and his absolute favorite dessert is carrot cake. Unfortunately. Besides banana creme pie, this is probably my least favorite dessert (if you can call it that). Although the frosting is pretty yummy. Anyways, these turned out well, as far as I can tell..I didn't actually try one. I did make a few changes by following the 04/05/08 review on this page http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/reviews/INSIDE-OUT-CARROT-CAKE-COOKIES-109346. I also made a totally different frosting than was suggested. I used 8oz cream cheese, 3/4 stick of butter, roughly 1/2 cup of confectioner's sugar, a bit of vanilla, and some cinnamon. Honestly, I can't tell you of these were good, but if you like carrot cake, they were an easy alternative to making and frosting an entire cake.