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This may look like a regular package of greek yogurt to you, but trust me. It’s not

It’s a mixture of chocolately goodness. And it’s going to make some damn good frozen yogurt.

Did I mention that this frozen yogurt is 4 points + per 4 oz serving? That is kind of important to some people. Also, it’s made of whole foods. Which is always important to me.

chimes’s dark chocolate frozen yogurt

Ingredients

32 oz 0% plain Greek yogurt (I like Chobani or Fage, but couldn’t find either this day — Greek Gods was fine)
1/4 c (or a bit more) cocoa powder
3/4 c sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/3 c coffee

Directions

Mix together and put in your ice cream maker. We got an immersion blender for Christmas, so I used this and it made the yogurt super creamy. Follow ice cream maker’s directions.

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So a long long time ago, I had a birthday party. Yes. In October.

Regardless, you’re getting a recipe, so ignore the un-timeliness of this post. As you may know, I’ve been obsessed with everything spicy. Including chocolate. Chipotle chocolate to be precise. So for my birthday I made a spicy chocolate flourless cake. Because, as you may also know, I quit eating gluten in hopes of fixing my tummy troubles [ it worked ].

I used the Chipotle Flourless Chocolate Cake recipe from Simply Recipes. But there was one major problem: I couldn’t find chipotle anywhere. Apparently WalMart has it [ for future reference ]. So instead, I ground up about a teaspoon of crushed red pepper in the coffee grinder and added that.

Also, this is the easiest recipe ever. It’s basically 1 bag of chocolate chips [ semi-sweet or darker ] + sugar + butter + 5 eggs + any spices you want to add. And the end product? It’s like a slice of chocolate that’s the consistency of cheesecake.

[ melt the chocolate and butter together ]

[ stir up the eggs and sugar ]

Did I mention Danielle helped me bake? She’s my favorite baking partner-in-crime and we live so far apart we hardly ever get to do this anymore. My yearly birthday get-togethers are usually when we do such things. Last year we made Guinness Cupcakes.

[ grind up the spices ... or use chipotle ]

[ mix all together ]

[ bake in a springform pan ]

<

[ serve! ]

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You voted, and the winner of the cookie for this month’s Cookie of the Month Club subscription was chocolate covered ritz peanut butter sandwiches, or as my family calls them: Bark cookies.

For the record, I really wanted to make Meltaways. Buuut I know my dad and Grandpa will really love getting a big package of these babies.

Also, mind didn’t turn out as pretty as Spoon Fork Bacon’s rendition (photo above). But, I used dark chocolate instead of almond bark and whole wheat crackers. They taste the same, and they’re covered in chocolate, so nobody is ever going to be able to tell I healthed these up a little bit. A little bit. They are still chocolate covered ritz crackers with peanut butter.

If you’re interested in making these, you don’t put much peanut butter on the inside. A little dab will do you. Same with the chocolate. And using a double boiler (or my makeshift double boiler — hot water in a pan with my pyrex bowl of chocolate on top) is the best method to keep the viscosity of the chocolate good for dipping.

I made about 60 of these. For the record, I ate 4.

In case anybody is counting, these are 4 points +. Per cookie. Try not to eat more than one.

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I have a problem. I’ve pinned too many cookies on Pinterest.

I have so many I want to try.

The good news is that I can’t eat most of them (gluten) and I gave my dad and grandpa a “cookie of the month” subscription for Christmas. Which means I’m making a batch of cookies to mail to them every month this year.

Now which cookie should I make? Can you help me out? I can’t decide. Vote for the one I should make.

If I get a lot of participation with the voting this month, I might turn this into a giveaway (as in you’ll get your own bunch of cookies mailed to you as well). This is going to be a monthly voting conundrum I feel.

The Contenders

Chocolate Ritz Peanut Butter Cookies (we call them bark cookies) 

Cinnamon M&M Oatmeal Cookies

Meltaways

White Chocolate Topped Gingerbread Cookies

The Voting

Voting closes on January 10. I’ll announce what cookie won on January 15.

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I made the most amazing cookies a while back.

I got the recipe from Annie’s Eats. They’re her thick and chewy chocolate chip cookies. I modified because I’m in love with spicy chocolate, so I used a spicy chocolate and cherry chocolate bar with a bag of Ghiradelli chocolate chunks instead of chips.

Annie’s Eats Thick and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients:
2 cups plus 2 tbsp. all-purpose flour
½ tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. salt
12 tbsp. unsalted butter, melted and cooled until warm
1 cup brown sugar, packed
½ cup granulated sugar
1 large egg plus 1 egg yolk
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 ½ cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions:
Adjust oven racks to upper and lower-middle positions.  Preheat oven 325°.  Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper.

Whisk dry ingredients together in a medium bowl; set aside.  With electric mixer, or by hand, mix butter and sugars until thoroughly combined.  Beat in egg, yolk, and vanilla until combined.  Add dry ingredients and beat at low-speed just until combined.  Stir in chocolate chips.

Roll a scant half-cup of dough into a ball.  Holding dough ball in fingertips of both hands, pull apart into two equal halves.  Rotate halves 90 degrees and, with jagged surfaces facing up, place formed dough onto cookie sheet, leaving ample room between each ball.  Bake, reversing position of cookie sheets halfway through baking, until cookies are light golden brown and outer edges start to harden yet centers are still soft and puffy (approximately 11-14 minutes).  Do not overbake.

Cool cookies on sheets until able to lift without breaking.  Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

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I’ve been obsessing over smoothies.  Big time.  One every day for breakfast.  I keep this one for the weekend because sometimes bananas give me stomachaches, but it is SO worth the tummy ache for this smoothie.

Chocolate Banana Smoothie

1 frozen banana
5 ice cubes
2 T cocoa (unsweetened)
1 scoop whey protein powder
1/2 c–3/4 c almond milk

Crush ice then blend until smooth. Serve cold.

Yummmmmmmm! It’s like having ice cream for breakfast. Except less naughty.

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Tuesday was my boss’s last day at Drake. *insert super sad face here*

She’s also pregnant — WITH TWINS! So we had a combination going-away-baby-shower party for her. I made chocolate covered strawberries. YUM.

One thing I learned from this round of chocolate covered strawberries (I’ve had less pretty ones created from previous batches):

BE CAREFUL WITH CHOCOLATE.  As in don’t overheat it.  Do 30 seconds at a time in the microwave in a glass bowl.  And when it looks like it needs about 30 more seconds, instead, stir it for 30-60 seconds to melt the remainder. BINGO. Perfect chocolate.  I also used a spatula to drizzle white chocolate over the top. White chocolate is even more picky, so be careful or it will get lumpy and clumpy.

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So I love Pinterest. Did I ever mention that? I have a ton of boards, but one that’s always growing is my dessert board. So many naughty decadent things on there that I will probably never make.

I present to you the most naughty-looking desserts that I’ve got pinned for possible future binging.

1. Sweet, Salty, Chewy and Crunchy Brownies
   
   Holy lord these look naughty. I just ran across these the other day. Caramels, pretzels, peanuts and cream. These are actually too naughty-looking for me to attempt baking.
2. Dutch Apple Cheesecake
   
   Apple pie + cheesecake? Yes. Please.
3. Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ice Cream Cake
   
   Wow. That’s all I have to say. It’s too much for me … doesn’t look appetizing, but would be fun to make.
4. Homemade Samoas (Girl Scout Cookies)
   
   These look awesome. I think I want to try making these. It would be  interesting to see how I can modify them to have them be healthier than GS cookies (ie. less processed crap and more whole ingredients).
5. Cadbury Creme Egg-Filled Cupcakes
   
   Whoever thought to do this was a mad genius.  I don’t know if I can bring myself to do it, but awesome.
6. Snickers Caramel Cheesecake Cookies
   
   There are no words.
7. Vanilla  Bean Latté Cupcakes
   
   Any filled cupcake is just plain naughty. These look beautiful and delish.
8. Toffee Brittle with Chocolate and Sea Salt
   
   Yum. Sweet+salty=awesome
9. Hot Chocolate Layer Cake with Marshmallows
   
   Just look at the thickness of frosting on this. Whoa.
10. Peanut Butter Cup and Pretzel Terrine
    
    I actually made this for Mark’s birthday last year and made it NAUGHTIER. It was awesome. A nice option for a birthday instead of a cake in the hot summer months.

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OM nom nom nom nom!

What could be better than combining chocolate and beer? Frosting it. With cream cheese frosting. Oh, and putting it in a portable and cute cupcake form.

Last Sunday was my b-day and my friend Danielle and I made Guinness cupcakes for our friends to enjoy at my little gathering.

I used this recipe for the cake and this recipe for the frosting. These were super super naughty, but soooooo good!

Here is my lovely cupcake display — of course, I frosted them hot pink. Would you expect any less? And Naked Michael Jackson had to come to the party too. It’s not a party without naked michael jackson.

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In light of recent developments and lack of blogging about exercise and running, I probably should change the masthead to something else. I really should blog about those recent developments. I just haven’t had a chance. I tend to blog when I’ve got something I want to show off…not when I’ve got something sucky that happens (unless I’m mad about it…then yeah. I’ll blog). Anyway, last weekend I made some of Bakerella’s Red Velvet Cake Balls for my friend Steph‘s housewarming party.  They went over pretty well, so I decided I should make them again.

I went grocery shopping on Wednesday and lo and behold cake mix was on sale. d’oh.  So I picked up a box of strawberry cake mix and a box of devils food and the rest of the stuff for the balls. Fabulous. I love baking…but I really shouldn’t be eating this kind of crap all the time!

Tonight I decided I might as well make them since I had the whole night to myself. I was going to start working on an album cover for a friend of a friend but my scanner decided that it wasn’t going to work because the printer attached to it was out of ink. Well, guess what? I don’t have money for ink this month. I’m going to hit up work tomorrow and scan it there quick I think. I spent enough time there today so I didn’t want to have to go back.

Anywho. Back on topic. I busted out my fancy pyrex that I had just purchased on e-bay (I had some of the bowls, but not all of them) to make the cake balls. Exciting!  I baked the cakes while doing some visual research for the album cover and trying to scan the artwork (and trying to trick the printer into thinking that there was more ink… didn’t work. just got all inked up). When they were done, I let them cool for an hour and a half while I went and rode the stationary bike and read 2 issues of Runner’s World, an issue of SELF and an issue of Fitness. Needless to say it wasn’t a hard workout, but I’m trying not to push myself right now since I’m injured. I figured an hour at a moderate pace was better than nothing.

I came home… stretched, washed up and got back to work.

I formed balls out of the strawberry cake ball mix (ie: half a can of frosting and a strawberry cake — I managed to eat some of the frosting before I got to making the balls). I melted down the white almond bark for the first batch and mixed together a bunch of random sprinkles that I had in my cupboard (valentines and easter). I also realized pyrex gets hot when it’s heated up in the microwave.  I totally forgot about that.  I know. Dumb.

The strawberry balls went off without a hitch. Not the prettiest in the world (I shouldn’t have added the green sugar to the sprinkle mix), but whatever. They taste good. Ideally I would have had a lot more fun sprinkles and rolled each ball in sprinkles so it was completely covered, but I was working with what I had. I could have busted out my halloween sprinkles but it would have ruined the mood.

Finished the strawberry balls…moved on to the devils food. For whatever reason the devils food cake ball mix made about 55 balls vs the 36 strawberry. Not sure why. I made them all pretty much the same size…maybe because there was less frosting in the strawberry mix?  I don’t know.  That being said, I unfortunately didn’t have enough almond bark to cover ALL my devils food balls. I had to pitch about 10 balls (I couldn’t eat any more at this point. was getting shaky from all the sugar!).  Also, the chocolate almond bark is harder to work with because apparently it carmelizes faster than the regular almond bark if you heat it too fast in the microwave. Boo.

I finished my balls and they’re in the fridge. I really don’t know what to do with them. I just had an itch to make some.

check out my awesome pyrex.

these turned out really cute actually. strawberry cake balls with white chocolate and sprinkles

half and half

covering the chocolate cake balls mmmmm.

these balls are covered in chocolate.

These are so fun to make. I want to try making the cake pops sometime though. She’s got so many permutations of the pops… sooo many fun ways to try it!

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