Chocolate Ginger Cookies

Gingerbread: a classic flavour during Christmas time, no? Gingerbread and Christmas just go together like two peas in a pod. One is not the same without the other.
However... sometimes... things are just too good to only be eaten once a year. These cookies fall into that category. Hence why I made them a few weeks ago!
Enter the chocolatey-goodness of Chocolate Ginger Cookies! This is one of my favourite recipes. They have an amazing ginger flavour thanks to fresh and ground ginger, and the chocolate flavour from cocoa powder along with chunks of chocolate throughout makes them so much better than an average ginger snap. Because let's get real, chocolate chunks make everything better, am I right?
Perfect when paired with a hot chocolate by the fire on a cold winter's eve... Or anytime during the year when you just want really delicious cookies. Add a glass of cold milk into the mix, and you're golden.

Chocolate Ginger Cookies

Recipe from my friend Martha

• 1 1/2 cups plus 1 tbsp flour
• 1 1/4 tsp ground ginger
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp ground cloves
• 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1 tbsp cocoa powder
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 tbsp freshly grated ginger (peeled!)
• 1/2 brown sugar (light or dark is fine, I used dark)
• 1/2 cup molasses
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 1/2 tsp boiling water
• 7 ounces semi-sweet chocolate (or bittersweet if you are feeling dark and dangerous) cut into chunks, or you can use about 1 cup of chocolate chips in a pinch!
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar

In a bowl, sift the flour, spices and cocoa powder. In a mixer, cream together the butter and ginger until fluffy, about 4 minutes. Add sugar, beat it! Add molasses, beat it! Like Michael Jackson.

In a small bowl, dissolve the baking soda with the boiling water. Beat half of the flour into the butter mixture, followed by the baking soda mixture, followed by the remaining flour, beating until just combined after each addition. Stir in the chocolate. shape dough into a disk, wrap in plastic and chill in the fridge until firm, 2 hours or overnight.

Preheat your oven to 325 (300 if you have a crazy hot oven, like moi). Line baking sheets with parchment or Silpats. (Note: Silpats are the best invention ever, and are well worth an investment.)

Roll dough into small balls, about 1 1/2" or however big you desire. Place 2" apart on baking sheets and chill for 20 minutes. Roll them in the granulated sugar, and if you wish, flatten them a tiny bit with the palm of your hand or a fork. They will spread a tiny bit when they bake, but I do like to flatten them a bit myself to help them out. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes, let cool for 5 minutes or so on the pan, then transfer to a wire rack to finish cooling.

Eat one fresh while the chocolate is still melty, and you will experience euphoria.

<3 Larissa

Mocha Fudge Brownie Cake

I have an apology to make: I do not have a good photo of this cake. I am sorry! But it is one of those things where I made it in the morning before school, and when I came back the family was already into it before there was time to snap a photo! Luckily, I have this Instagram for proof. Sometimes things are just too fantastic to stop and take a photo. Live life as it happens, you know? You can choose to keep, or omit the happy birthday message to my Great Auntie Irene; I am sure she wouldn't mind either way.

Let me first say that this is one of the best cakes I have ever eaten or made. I know, that's a big thing to say, but it truly was delish. I have been craving a brownie lately, and this cake is just what the Brownie Doctor ordered! (Man I wish that was a real profession.) It is beautifully dense like a brownie, and the light coffee-flavoured whip cream is a dreamy accompaniment. If you are opposed to coffee flavoured whip cream (get out of town first) then you can flavour the cream however you like! Strained raspberry puree would be good, or even just some vanilla extract and sugar added to the cream would be great.

Mocha Fudge Brownie Cake

Recipe from Hershey's Chocolate Cookbook

Notes: I switched things up only a tiny bit in this one, I toasted my pecans before chopping them and adding them to the batter, and I would highly recommend it. Also, I used dark brown sugar in the Coffee Cream rather than light... for the simple fact that I forgot to write light brown sugar on the shopping list. Still turned out awesome.

For the BROWNIE CAKE:

• 1 1/4 cups melted butter
• 3/4 cup cocoa powder
• 4 eggs
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 cup flour
• 1 cup finely chopped toasted pecans

Prepare your pans for cake batter battle! Do this by greasing two 9" pans with butter, and dust them with flour, tapping out the excess. For extra protection and cake-removal-confidence, cut out a circle of parchment paper to line the bottom of your pan with.

Stir together the melted butter and cocoa powder, set aside. Beat eggs in a mixer till foamy, add in salt and vanilla. Add sugar and beat well, add the cooled chocolate mixture and blend. Sift the flour over the batter and fold in. Next fold in the pecan pieces. Pour half the batter into each pan.

Bake at 350 (325 for my oven) for 20 to 25 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean. Cool cakes in pans for 5 to 10 minutes, then cool out of pans completely before you frost them, *remember to peel off parchment paper if you used it*. At this stage, you can choose to wrap the cakes in plastic wrap and freeze them (up to 4 weeks) until cake day.

DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT OVER BAKING!

Do you want a moist fudgey brownie like cake? Then yeah, no over baking. It is the worst feeling. And I have totally never experienced that before... ahem..

For the COFFEE CREAM:

• 1 1/2 cups heavy cream
• 1/3 cup brown sugar (light or dark)
• 2 tsp instant coffee powder

Combine all ingredients and stir until sugar and coffee are dissolved. Beat until you have stiff peaks of fluffy, coffee flavoured whip cream!

KITCHEN TIP!! This is a fun little secret that I learned from hours of studying the Food Network. If you want your whip cream to hold it's fragile peaks and swirls for hours, stir in about 1 tsp of skim milk powder in. You can do this at any stage of whipping it, beginning middle or end... and it works like a dream!

CAKE ASSEMBLY!

Spread the Coffee Cream over the top of the bottom cake layer, spreading right to the edges. Place the top cake layer on top, and frost the top and sides, covering the cake completely. Garnish the cake with whatever you like! The original recipe suggests chocolate curls, I used melted chocolate chips to write a happy birthday message. Refrigerate 1 hour or more before serving.

ENJOY! And happy Cake Baking.

<3 Lari

Peach and Berries Cobbler-Cake

So, if you happened read this older post, you will recall Anna Olson's monthly Bake Off contest on www.foodnetwork.ca. And you may know how much I love this contest, not only because it gives me another excuse to bake, but because last month... I WON!! I know, I cannot believe it. I still can't. But it is true, and I won my very own KITCHEN AID MIXER... Jaw to the floor. Holy cow I am so stoked about life.

Any who... even though I have already won, I really enjoy participating in the bake off, so I will continue to try out the recipes and post them! This is the picture I sent in along with my description for The August Bake Off: Peach and Berry Cobbler!

Peach Cobbler is the perfect August dessert! And adding berries to it just makes life more exciting. I must say, I used a rather tall 8 cup baking dish, so the cobbler turned into more of a cobbler cake... But I think that was a Happy Mistake.
Another problem I ran into was that the peaches we had bought we SO not ripe, but we had to make do with them because our guests were arriving too soon to buy more! Well great news, turns out even unripe peaches magically transform into tender delicious ones when baked into a cobbler.
I chose to serve this cobbler with a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream and homemade butterscotch sauce, to a few friends and family members on our back candle-lit-porch in the evening... Ah, that is how summer should be. Thanks Anna! My dessert night was a success! (after everyone left, I helped myself to a
second bowl...) :)

Happy Baking!

Peach and Berries Cobbler-Cake

Recipe adapted* from Anna Olson

(*You could say I adapted it... or you could say that I made some happy mistakes along the way which led this to not become the exact recipe that she used... I'm gonna go with adapted.)

• 6 cups fresh peaches, peeled and sliced
• 1 cup fresh raspberries
• 1/2 cup fresh blueberries
• 3 tbsp sugar
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon

Toss sliced peaches, raspberries and blueberries with the sugar and cinnamon and put into an 8 cup baking dish. (the deeper your dish, the more cake-like this cobbler will become. This is what happened to me and it worked... but not what the original recipe looks like!)

• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 6 tbsp melted butter
• 2/3 cup milk
• 2 cups flour
• 2 tbsp cornmeal
• 4 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt

Whisk eggs, milk and sugar in a bowl. Whisk in milk. Sift the flour, cornmeal, baking powder and salt over the wet ingredients and stir to combine. Dollop this mixture over the peaches and berries. Mine ended up completely covering the fruit, which turned out to be okay! But Anna tells you to leave spaces for the fruit to peak through. Again, depends on your baking dish. Sprinkle a little bit of cinnamon-sugar over the cobbler and pop it into a 375 oven (350 for me!)The recipe says to bake for 35-45 minutes... mine took nearly double that... but just keep an eye on it! Every oven is "special and unique" in its own little way.

=)

Serve with Vanilla ice cream and butterscotch sauce.

<3 Lari

Coconut Ice Cream Sandwiches

YEEEESSS.

I finally made ice cream sandwiches! I have been dreaming of making homemade ice cream all summer... as well as making homemade ice cream sandwiches. So I did. Both! At the same time. And it was awesome.

Good News and Bad News.
Bad News:
My dear friend Nicola is leaving us here in Cow Town to go to school in the States. :( This is sad because I will miss her soft hair (this sounds creepy, but it is seriously the softest hair out there), her pretty face, and pastel/floral filled wardrobe.

Good News:

When people you love go away, you hold a party for them. Or at least, your friend Chelsea does, and you make dessert. That is the good part about people leaving: fantastic friends, and scrumptious snacks to send them off.

I made these coconut ice cream sandwiches for Nicola's farewell. Ice cream sandwiches are a grand summertime treat! I do enjoy a good ice cream sandwich. And I do enjoy a hefty dose of coconut in my diet. Because it is delicious. These sandwiches start off with a chewy coconut cookie. They are flavoured with coconut extract, which you could totes replace with any other extract you wish and make: maple, vanilla, lemon, rum, chocolate cookies... etc etc.

You pipe the batter onto the cookie sheet in little pinwheels like so...

Pop em' into the oven...

Aaaaaand... 

Tadaa!! Chewy Coconut Cookies

Chewy Coconut Cookies

Recipe Adapted from Martha Stewart

• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 3 eggs
• 1 1/4 cups sugar
• 1 tsp coconut extract (or any other extract you prefer!)

Sift the flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl. In a mixer bowl, whisk the eggs until nice and fluffy which takes about 3 minutes. Gradually add the sugar, beating for 3 more min. Mix in the extract. Reduce speed to low to add in the flour mixture.

This is where things get a little crazy. These cookies get piped onto the baking sheets... weird! But it totally works. And works well. So, place the cookie batter into a piping bag with a round tip attatched (or use a ziploc and snip off one corner). Pipe 2 inch round pinwheels onto parchment lined baking sheet, and bake cookies 8 to 9 minutes in a 350F oven. (My oven likes it hot, so I put mine at 325. Use your own discretion.) The cookies are done when they are pale in colour and the tops start to crack a little.

Cool for about 5 minutes on the sheet, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Whenever I look at this next picture, I get very, very excited. Like the same feeling you get on Christmas morning. The feeling of: This box contains something extensively awesome, and has the potential to be life changing. Also the feeling of: Oh my gosh I seriously am finally making homemade ice cream. Which was a great feeling, let me tell you.

OOOO... EXCITED YET?!?

HOW ABOUT NOW?! Cuz I am. The only unfortunate thing about this is that I don't actually own this here ice cream maker. Sad face. It belongs to my Aunt, which isn't so bad because she only lives one block away, and says I can borrow it whenever I wish. Awe yeah. I love how retro it looks :)

For the ice cream recipe, I tried one by Anna Olson that has cream cheese, coconut extract, and coconut milk. The cream cheese made it super delish and creamy.

Coconut Cream Cheese Ice Cream

Recipe from Anna Olson

• 8 ounces cream cheese, softened
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 cup coconut milk
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 1 tsp coconut extract
• pinch of salt
• 1/2 whipping cream, whipped

Beat cream cheese and sugar together, then add coconut milk, lemon juice, extract and salt. Fold in the whipped cream.

Freeze in an ice cream maker according to the machines instructions. (or if you can't get ahold of one, try this method)

Coconut Ice Cream Sandwiches

Assembly time!

Note! It is easiest to use slightly softened ice cream to assemble these, but don't make it too soft, otherwise the ice cream will just spill out the sides. If your ice cream is getting too soft, put it back in the freezer for a bit to firm up.

I like to work in batches, a few cookies at a time so that the sandwiches don't melt as I am making them.

Take a scoop of ice cream, sandwich it between two cookies and roll the edges in some golden and toasty shredded coconut. Place sandwich on a baking tray and after you've made a few, place tray in the freezer. Repeat until you have made your desired amount of sammies!

Let the sandwiches set in the freezer for at least 30 minutes or so just to re-freeze the ice cream. ENJOY!

<3 Lari

Zucchini/Tomato Rice Gratin

Nearly every time I read somebody's blog post about a recipe... I want to make it. This is a challenge because there are TOO MANY RECIPES AND NOT ENOUGH TIME! This is one of the rare dishes that I actually did end up making after reading it on one of my fave-food-blogs!

It was one of those awesome moments where I thought, this looks delish, and I have all of the ingredients!! And my family was impressed that I managed to do something delicious with that tub of cooked rice in the back of the fridge. (I'm trying to get better at using up the stuff we already have on hand, rather than buying new ingredients all the time.)

The only real reason I adapted this recipe is because I:

1. Had a small tub of pre-cooked rice chillin' in the fridge
2. Did not have enough garlic on hand!
3. Had some yellow zucchini AND green from the farmer's market... and I thought the red green and yellow looked so pretty together.

Zucchini & Tomato Rice Gratin

Recipe only slightly adapted from Smitten Kitchen

• About 1 to 2 cups (no need to be too precise) of already cooked rice (Or, the original recipe tells you to cook up 1/3 cup uncooked rice)
• olive oil
• 1 1/2 pounds zucchini (use all yellow, all green, a mix, or whateva!) sliced 1/4 inch thick
• 1/2 pound tomatoes, sliced 1/4 inch thick
• salt and pepper
• 1 medium onion, halved lengthwise and thinly sliced
• 1 garlic clove minced
• 2 eggs, slightly beaten
• 1 tsp chopped fresh thyme leaves
• 1/2 cup grated parmesan

If you are using uncooked rice, cook it now! Then set it aside.

Spread a tbsp or so of olive oil into two oven proof dishes/pans. Lay out your zucchini and tomatoes in the pans, and season them with salt and pepper.

Roast the veggies at 450 (425 for my hot oven): put the zucchini in for 10 minutes, take it out and flip it, then put it back in along with the tomatoes for another 10 minutes. If this was most likely confusing: Roast zucchini for 20 minutes, roast tomatoes for 10 minutes. (no need to bother flipping the tomatoes halfway through their cooking time.)

MEANWHILE: Heat a large skillet over medium heat, and heat about 2 tbsp olive oil. Once hot, add your sliced onions, garlic and a sprinkle of salt. Cover, reduce heat to low, and cook until onions get all limpy. Yum. Stir occasionally. This takes about 15-20 minutes... perfect to do whilst waiting for all those roasting veggies!

In a bowl, combine your cooked rice, eggs, thyme, half of the grated parmesan and about 1/2 tbsp olive oil. When your onion mixture is cooked, add this to the bowl along with some fresh ground pepper and stir to mix everything together.

Grease a 2-quart baking dish with a bit of olive oil, and spread half of the rice mixture into the dish. Next, layer half of the zucchini. Repeat! Now, layer the tomato slices on top, and sprinkle the remaining parmesan cheese over it all.

Bake for about 20 minutes, until the dish is set and tomato edges get all toasty.

Eat it and love it!

I totally want to try this using different kinds of rice, thinking maybe a brown rice would be awfully tasty.

<3 Larissa

My Week with Instagram

Another week in the life of Larissa has passed! And what a lovely week it has been. :)

SUNDAY AUGUST 26: The view from work... not bad eh?

MONDAY AUGUST 27: Bringing homemade raspberry marshmallows to my Soccer Party

TUESDAY AUGUST 28: A summer's evening with friends and family

WEDNESDAY AUGUST 29: Volunteering for the First Year Orientation... FYI this is NOT a real tattoo... lol

THURSDAY AUGUST 30: Out for a lovely Chinese food dinner... and on Saturday... my Aunt flew in from Toronto for a surprise visit! Freaky...

FRIDAY AUGUST 31: A beautiful day for lunch in the park

SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 1: Smores! With homemade Raspberry Marshmallows and 80% dark Lindt Chocolate... Sweet goodness...

My Week with Instagram

GRAND NEWS! I am now the proud owner of an iPhone! I must say, I am rather stoked beyond words about this. I have been wanting one of these fancy-pants mobile devices for quite some time now. And recently, as I have been seeing more and more people posting their Instagram photos, I have been wanting Instagram more and MORE! It came to the point where 50% of the reason I wanted an iPhone was to have Instagram.

Out on a Saturday morning run

BUT NOW I DO! Yes, just this past Wednesday, I got Instagram. It is a special day in the Life of Larissa. Mark your calendars.

Instagram/iPhone photos in general are so great because it gives you the chance to capture moments of your everyday life, and share them with your friends. The photos are often photos I wouldn't normally have, because I would not normally have my camera with me! Such as whilst on a morning jog, and the world just looks to beautiful to leave un-photographed.

So, new feature: My Week with Instagram! Just so I can look back on the little things that made me smile each day. (This one's a little short, seeing as I have only had Instagram since Wednesday. But I am eager.)

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Saturday

Christina cutting the Oreo Birthday Cake I made for her

Recipe to come soon? Hopefully



















Bananas Foster dessert from Murrieta's




SWEET LORD THIS WAS THE BEST THING EVER. All that sauce on the bottom? Caramelly, Rummy and Yummy.















The Cookie Monster, strolling along 9th Avenue


Later I saw him chasing after two cookies. No lies.


















A runner. That is I.




I have been trying to get more runs in lately. Especially because SAIT Cross Country starts up again VERY soon! And I will be running nearly 6 days a week... oh boy

Sunday

The Sunday sun, setting over the city, AKA my view from the workplace. Yep, this definitely makes work a little awesome.








Hope you also had a lovely week... the last full week of August! WOW

<3 Lari