Cooking with chocolate - results FINALLY page 3!

[Echos]

So official entry is a white chocolate panna cotta with a fresh raspberry sauce decorated with piped dark chocolate hearts (4 glasses in the back).



Also in the picture: meringue hearts with strawberry whipped cream, dark chocolate creme brulee and chocolate dipped strawberries. My roommates love these events.

[Delicious]

Eeee! Y'all are some awesome cooks. I'm gonna have to bring my a-game to be sure. <3 Loving the delish spreads tho!

[Seren]

Such a tough bunch... Well My entry will be posted tomorrow, we'll see how it goes!

(I made up the recipe myself... XD)

[AsaraDragon]

Hey Echos, do you have room for another roommate? I think I want to live with you too! XD

[Seren]

Ahh! It’s finally done! :’D I thought this would kill me honestly. XD

*Excuse the AWFUL camera quality, had to use my little sister's camera*

I love cooking and baking and creating, but this dessert just didn’t want to be made!

This is my mind child, The Reeses Chocolate and Peanut Butter Ice Cream Valentine’s Cake with Chocolate Peanut Butter Icing!

All homemade. XD Everything. (except the ice cream and reeses!)

If anyone interested on how I made this, just ask, I’ll post the whole long process.



Ingredients waiting to be used!



I used a chocolate cake recipe that I found while living in Germany



The mini cake is for my dad- He loves chocolate cake, but hates chocolate and peanut butter together, so when I had left over batter I made him his own mini-cake!



Here's the finished product! To be honest- It didn't turn out how I'd like. I'm a bit ashamed of it. But hey, this was an experiement! I've never made an ice cream cake before, and I wasn't following any recipe- it was all in my head. and I had fun making it (despite the almost-falling-out-of-the-fridge-scare!)



My test-tasting monkeys gave it the seal of approval. Said it was their favorite ice cream cake ever- the little goofballs.

Total Time Start to Finish: 8:30 AM - 8:06 PM.
Alot of that was freezing/making decorations/waiting to get the powdered sugar I needed.

Total Hours spent working on it: about 5 hours.

Description of the Cake: The bottom layer is a moist dense chocolate cake, with a layer of chocolate peanut butter frosting and a heavy layer of crushed Reeses. the top layer is Reeses peanut butter ice cream, and the whole thing is covered with my homemade chocolate peanut butter icing.

Decorations: My tag is hard to read- its at the bottom of the cake. I orginally made little charms (from Shrinky Dink plastic paper) or Aranea's Joy and RikkuGirl's Crack, but they got messed up in the oven. D: I remade the simple little (sloppily done) valentines sams that you can see in the picture below. There's also some chocolate and crushed Reeses covered strawberries decorating the tray, and some paper hearts. <333

[RikkuGirl]

Awww Crack would have loved to represent your cake! D: Too bad it didnt work! She would still like some of that cake ;D

Crack: *eyes get bigger* (<- if thats possible ;D) I want cake!! *hums*



All of the entries look aawesome!!! Personally I LOVE home made stuff. Seeing goopy frosting makes me hungry O_O;

[Seren]

Crack looked adorable too! But she became this melted little ball of plastic with a teeny head and a huge hoof, I was like.... *sniffs* I had worked like an hour on the two of them... XD Joy's wings are SO complicated.

*pats Crack's head* There's still half the cake left!

[RikkuGirl]

I want some!!! *waves hands*

Im going to the store today to get my stuff My best friend Trish and I are gong to figure out what to do O_O;;; I still dont really know what im going to do... but i figure we will come up with something O-o;;;

We arent great cooks at all..... sooooo... dont be surprised if we do something that DOESNT include the oven. O.o;;

As long as its chocolate its good right? O-o;;; I hope it doesnt HAVE to be baked...trish has a tendency to burn herself ALOT when it comes to the oven.

[Seren]

Just have fun with it! I had fun, even though I got covered in flour, cocoa, ice cream, icing,... XD but it was fun! (especially crushing reeses with a hammer. X3)

Ah! All these events and sams and prizes have me all hyper!

[Pristine]

We arent great cooks at all..... sooooo... dont be surprised if we do something that DOESNT include the oven. O.o;;

As long as its chocolate its good right? O-o;;; I hope it doesnt HAVE to be baked...trish has a tendency to burn herself ALOT when it comes to the oven.

I think the thing I've decided on won't require an oven, either. But I think there have been several entries already that don't require it so I assume we're safe. I know for a fact truffles like BJJLilly's don't need an oven; I make them every Christmas and had considered making them for this 'till I saw her entry, LOL!

And as for not being cooks/bakers, I can feel you there, too. I'm going with a non-baking recipe just because I spent half a day last weekend trying to make chocolate pretzels for this event just to have the "batter" turn out completely unusable for no reason I could figure out. Had to toss the whole thing out and now that I've had a week to think, I've decided I'm just going to go with something a bit more fool-proof (I hope. Blarg, isn't that always famous last words of a baking attempt!)

[PookaWitch]

...okay. Okay. Deep breaths. I can do this. Then bed. Then... bed... <3

My inspiration for this cooking contest entry was PookaWitch's beautiful Pair Song, the Song of Winter's Love. I really think that Pair Songs pretty much sum up Valentine's day for me and these two are my absolute favorite. Look... even their poses match adorably together!

Daaaaawww. <3 I just noticed this, that's so very sweet.
And I do love those two, they just felt like they felt head over fluffy feet in love the moment they met. ^_^

[silvermoondragon]

Here's my entry, with lots of leftovers to enjoy for the next week or so!

Samanayr Pixel Fudge

A pixel Samanayr made from little bite-size cubes of fudge! Three colours of chocolaty fudge, cut into small delectable pieces.
White: some leftover white chocolate eggnog fudge which gave me the idea, not enough for what I had in mind though.
Light brown: white chocolate fudge, my first batch that didn't really turn out the way I had expected as the caramelized sugar added more colour than I expected, also I don't think I beat it hard enough and I think it went too fast past the soft ball stage and it kind-of solidified... it still tastes great though.
Brown: chocolate fudge, I learned from my first try and my second batch therefore turned out much better and was much more fudge-like XD

Also, making fudge is kind-of creepy... you have to wait for it to get to a certain temperature(soft ball stage) but if you stir it while you're waiting, it suddenly gets all bubbley and looks like it's going to climb right out of the pan! :O
I love dropping bits into water and poking them to see if they're ready...

[Seren]

That's so awesome Silver!

XD creepy fudge. *giggles*

[RikkuGirl]

13 oz of chocolate, 1 burnt finger, 80 million sheets of wax paper, 1 grocery bag, 2 accidents,2 rolls of paper towels, 1 pac of fake rose petals and 2 hrs later I give you....


My heart box! my best friend trish and I made this chocolate heart box for the entry!! I would have taken pictures of the process but our hands were covered in chocolate and well...i have to touch the screen of my phone to take a pic ^_^;;; so I have the final pictures below

Its white and milk chocolate molded into the shape of a heart with a heart shapped top cover that is decorated with what I like to call flowers carnations (we had to make molds out of putty and clay ) o.< trish said they look like....puppy presents -_- lol but its ok. We also had some cocobutter paper that we put on the bottom of the top to say happy valentines day. that plus the imprints andko the molding on the side made this box a box of looove

Now for pictures.

http://i1073.photobucket.com/albums/w38 ... 08_880.jpg
heart box with screen name. Almost forgot to put this one!

http://i1073.photobucket.com/albums/w38 ... _429-1.jpg
heart box all finished and happy

http://i1073.photobucket.com/albums/w38 ... 19_732.jpg
the inside!

http://i1073.photobucket.com/albums/w38 ... 28_908.jpg
the bottom of the lid

http://i1073.photobucket.com/albums/w38 ... 47_343.jpg
The imprints of flowers and the moldings on the sides.

http://i1073.photobucket.com/albums/w38 ... 36_590.jpg
Trish and I with the final product

Welp! That's my entry! Good luck everyone! <333

[RikkuGirl]

Btw everyones entries make me hungry!!!!

[Seren]

It's awesome! It's very nice to look at, unlike my entry XD

You and Trish did a great job!

[RikkuGirl]

thanks seren. The pictures give it alot of justice...though if you look you can see where I messed up alot. O.o;; the molding on the bottom and the heart shape itself was the hardest parts. My heart box itself fell apart twice. We had to get more chocolate and melt it like morter to keep it together! D:

http://i1073.photobucket.com/albums/w38 ... 00_561.jpg

http://i1073.photobucket.com/albums/w38 ... 20_446.jpg

Its got cracks and smudges....but over all, im pretty proud considering I've only done this twice before. Chocolate molding is not easy. Lol that plus I think I scorched a few areas....o.o; honestly I wouldn't eat this box...just look at it I mean the LID is def edible

The lid came out the best I think im most proud of that, lol

And seren yours looks sooooo nummy! They all do! I love messy food, normally the messier oit is the tastier it is. :3 <333

[Seren]

XD The problem is that the ice cream was melting while I was putting the icing on- at least I know what the problem is for next time! <3 I'll do it outside in the cold. Oo

And you can hardly tell that it has cracks, its so much better than I could do! It's great, really. XD

[Orasteele]

Well here is my entry! I did my chocolate & toffee pie, with chocolate gram crust, and chocolate shavings on top.
The filling has just enough chocolate to give you that delicious flavor without being too heavy.

[amazondreamer]

I've seen so many lovely cakes, cookies and other traditional desserts I decided I wanted to go in a totally different direction.... so I present to you dessert sushi =D



There are three types of sushi I made; the chocolate component of all three is modeling chocolate (chocolate melted with a little corn or agave syrup until it’s pliant) rolled thin to act as the nori. The rice used for all three was a short grain sushi rice, cooked and then sweetend with coconut milk and a little agave syrup.



The rolled sushi contains the chocolate “nori”, sweet coconut rice, kiwi, strawberry and cantaloupe.



The hand-formed sushi contains the chocolate “nori”, sweet coconut rice and a slice of watermelon to emulate sashimi.



The “warship roll” (foreground) contains the chocolate “nori”, sweet coconut rice and a raspberry to emulate fish roe.



My garnishes of wasabi and pickled ginger aren't chocolate based, but what sushi plate is complete without them? The wasabi is a little dollop of almond paste with a drop of green food dye kneaded in. The picked ginger was super thin slices of apple (cut on the mandolin) that soaked overnight in a dilute red food dye.

This was my first attempt at making sushi of any sort, much less dessert sushi, and I had a blast! And they were absolutely delicious to eat! I think my favorite was the warship roll with the raspberry, though Oak says she liked the rolls best. Speaking of Oak, I can't thank her enough. She was my photographer, my extra pair of hands, she made my name-tag and helped keep me sane. She also wanted to document our adventures over on instructables, so if you want more details or to see "in progress" shots go check it out [LINK]

[Seren]

O.O

amazon, that is so creative and well done! <3

[Pristine]

So, as I had stated before, I was going to be doing chocolate pretzels. I got the dough all together and it kept crumbling apart. By the time I got enough butter in it to make it dough-y, it was cracking apart when I tried to knead it. I got frustrated and had to throw it out.

I decided I wanted to do something I knew would come out, and would come out tasting good. Something foolproof, with a guaranteed delicious end. Basically, I didn't want to spend hours on a recipe that wouldn't turn out, that was brand new to me and I had no idea how it would've tasted if it HAD turned out!

After a delicious surprise Valentine's trip to a fondue place for dessert, I had an idea, and I decided to concoct my own monstrous creation. I apologize in advance for any cases of diabetes anyone gets from viewing these pictures.

Crispy Chocolate Insanity


For lack of a better name. :B

Since it looks like a pile of whipped cream, here is the (all-important) breakdown-slash-recipe from the bottom, up:
- Double-Chocolate Cocoa Krispie Treat
----- 11 cups Cocoa Krispies cereal, 2 8oz bags of Chocolate Royale Marshmallows (yes, they make chocolate marshmallows... MMM!), 6 tablespoons of butter. (Melt butter on low heat in a saucepan. Dump in marshmallows; stir occasionally until melted. Take off heat, stir in cereal until coated. Press cereal into greased 9x13x2" pan, and let cool until solid.) [link] [link]
- Chocolate-Peanut-Butter Krispie Treat coating
----- (Make more or less depending on how much of the above pan of treats you want to cover. I made just enough to cover about 1/3 of the pan in a light coating, and that's what this recipe is for, so scale up as necessary)... 6 squares of semi-sweet baking chocolate, 2-3 tablespoons of peanut butter (more or less depending on how peanut-buttery you want it!)... melt chocolate and peanut butter together in a double-boiler with a small sliver of butter (instead of a double boiler you can use a ceramic bowl that sits in a small pot you own; put a small amount of water into the pot, place the bowl over it, and heat on low to medium heat, stirring chocolate and butter in the bowl as it melts). Drizzle and spread over the cooled rice krispie treats. Let harden before cutting squares. [link]
- Chocolate Peanut-Butter Ice Cream (or ice cream of your choice)
----- This step can be left out altogether, to be honest. We had some low-calorie chocolate peanut-butter ice cream on hand that turned out to be more "ice" than "cream" and I would've enjoyed this more without it. A creamier ice cream might go a lot better, though...! [link]
- Peanut Butter of your choice
----- I used Peter Pan. If it matters. Just dump some on there. [link]
- Hot Fudge of your choice
----- Smuckers. Although the Hershey's looked tempting at the store. Warm it up and dump some on the peanut butter! [link]
- Home-made chocolate whipped cream
----- 1 and 1/2 cups of heavy whipping cream, 1/2 cup of confectioner's sugar, 1/4 cup cocoa... sift cocoa and confectioner's sugar together to get the lumps out. Beat heavy whipping cream on a low setting for 1 minute, then slowly add in the sugar/cocoa mixture, beating until all is incorporated and the cream is light and fluffy. DON'T OVERBEAT, you can turn this into chocolate butter pretty easily..! [link]
- Hershey's Triple-Chocolate Topping (or sprinkles/topping of your choice)
----- I saw this triple-chocolate topping at the store... it's tiny chocolate chips, chocolate cookie pieces, and jimmies. Any chocolate sprinkles will do, though! [link]

I've linked to large pictures of the progress at the end of each entry.

It's not pretty, but it makes up for it in deliciousness. And... in creating cravings. I want another one tonight.

[SilverDapples]

Wow everyone's looks like so delicious... XD like I want to try some of this >3

[Raitalle]

My entry! First time I've entered a cooking contest

I made chocolate ice cream bowls

First blew up some balloons and dipped them in melted chocolate, and sprinkled with nuts and/or sprinkles!


There was some extra chocolate, so I made chocolate covered strawberries


The final product, complete with ice cream and strawberry garnish! I chose to take one with nuts AND sprinkles, 'cause I'm crazy like that


It's delicious! There were a couple, ah, snaffus that I'm pretending didn't happen with the pictures, but I definitely learned! It will go much smoother, next time, haha.

[Seren]

Raitalle, that's so original, I never would have thought of that! Looks good though! :P

I'm really looking forward to seeing who takes away the prizes- everyone's looks SO delicious <3 makes me drool X3