Tag: chocolate desserts

Have a cold glass of milk with your Mayan Mystery Cookies

Mayan Mystery Cookies

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Chocolate. Cookies. Need I say more? Okay, how about allspice, cinnamon and black pepper? These three ingredients intensify the chocolate of these delicious cookies, lending some sophisitication and mega chocolatey goodness! 

Have a cold glass of milk with your Mayan Mystery Cookies

Perfect little 2-bite chocolatey cookies with just the right hint of heat.

Mayan Mystery Cookies ingredients

You probably have these ingredients in your pantry already!

Ingredients:

¾ c. butter

¾ c. sugar

1 ½ c. all-purpose flour

1 ½ tsp. baking powder

¼ tsp. salt

1 tsp. cinnamon

½ tsp. finely ground black pepper

¼ tsp. ground allspice

The dough for Mayan Mystery Cookies will be crumbly, which is normal.

The dough will be crumbly and a little dry. This is normal! It will come together in the next step.

1/8 tsp. cayenne pepper

¾ c. cocoa powder

1 large egg, lightly beaten

1 ½ tsp. vanilla extract

Semi-sweet chocolate morsels

 
Instructions:

Roll up the dough into balls and get ready to bake the Mayan Mystery Cookies.

Roll the cookies into little balls. Fortunately, they won’t spread a lot so you can fit more onto one cookie sheet.

Cream the butter and sugar together.

Sift the flour, baking powder, spices and cocoa and add to the butter mixture.

Add egg and vanilla and mix.

Lay out a piece of plastic wrap and spoon the dough, which will be crumbly, onto the plastic. With the help of the plastic wrap, gather the dough together, pressing it into a log. Wrap the log in the plastic to keep it together and chill the dough log for one hour.  

Form the dough into balls about the size of a ping pong ball, tucking 4-5 chocolate morsels into each as you mold it.

Bake 8 minutes at 350 degrees.

Easy Dessert – Nutella Torte

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One night, I was feeling super-ambitious and decided I was going to make crepes. What’s more, I was going to spread Nutella on them and have a little bit of heaven on a plate. As I made the crepes (which were a whole lot easier than I thought they’d be) and was stacking them between layers of wax paper, I realized that the stack looked like a multi-layered cake. That gave me the idea of spreading a thin layer of Nutella between each crepe to make a torte.

Nutella Torte - Slice

It looks like it took a very long time but this dessert comes together in about 15 minutes and requires no baking.

The family was so impressed by this pretty dessert that I decided to keep it in my repertoire of desserts to pull together in a pinch, but that look like I gave a lot of thought, time and attention to. Now it’s our little secret!

Don’t Tell Them It Was This Easy Nutella Torte

Ingredients
Crepes:
1 1/2 cups flour
2 TBS sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 eggs, beaten
2 cups milk
2 TBS butter

1 jar Nutella hazelnut spread at room temperature
Berries, Sliced fruit, toasted nuts (optional)

Variations: Nutella and jam flavor of choice or orange marmalade, alternating layers of chocolate and jam/marmalade.

Instructions
For the crepes, mix flour, sugar, baking powder and salt into a bowl.
Beat the eggs and milk until well-mixed and add to dry ingredients. Mix until smooth.

Melt 1/2 tsp butter in preheated (medium high) crepe pan or flat-bottomed thick pan. Pour 1/4 cup batter in the pan, swirling it quickly to evenly spread the batter around. (Note – it you are using a pan that is more than 8 inches, be careful how much you spread it. Without the limitations of the size of the pan, you could get unevenly-sized crepes which would mess with the look of a layer cake.)

Cook crepes one minute on each side. Immediately place each one on the serving plate, spreading it with the Nutella, not quite to the edge. Make the next crepe and place it on top of the other one, again spreading the Nutella. Repeat, layer after layer. While it’s helpful to have one person make the crepes while the other spreads Nutella, it isn’t necessary. Just move fast!

Nutella Torte - making

A torte in the making, layer by layer. The Nutella spreads beautifully over the warm crepes. Don’t extend the spread to the edges because, as the warm layers build, it will spread out a little more.

Finish off the top crepe with more Nutella or leave that off and dust with powdered sugar. Because this is so sweet, a pretty and nice foil is fruit, such as Clementine slices or berries. Toasted hazelnuts would also be delicious and add texture. Because the crepes are somewhat bland, think of them as a blank canvas between which you layer whatever sounds good!

Use a sharp knife to cut torte wedges like you would a layer cake. If you knife isn’t sharp though, it will just press down and make everything squish and slide – not pretty! The torte is even better the next day and is even good chilled.