Tag Archives: Egg white

Chocolate Biscoff Whipped Cream Layer Cake

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As unbelievable as it may seem, I have finally entered adult-hood. Legally, at least.

Last Friday, I turned 18! The most exciting part about turning 18 for me was that I was finally able to change my name to Crasey Rich. It’s just like Casey Ulrich, but just a couple confused letters.

KIDDING guys!! Sheesh, I hope you would never believe me that I’d change my name to that…especially considering I made like negative dollars the past year.

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I guess to some people, turning 18 means tattoos, cigarettes, and lottery tickets. Let me share my view of these shiny, brand new privileges. I would rather clean port-o-potties with a toothbrush everyday for 2 months then have a needle, NEEDLE :0 inject stuff into me…and then it’s permanent! Oh gosh, I think they look cool on other people, but for me oh no, nope, no chance that I could ever be convinced to pay to have a needle in me. Shots and when I have to get my blood drawn for allergy tests are my worst enemies. Cigarettes, are another fear of mine. I would prefer to wait to start my personal voyage to cancer. No need to buy it. Lastly, I don’t have many bad things to say about the lottery because I don’t even know all the ins and outs of it. I got 3 tickets on my birthday, buttttttt how the heck do you find out if you won?! Heck I could have won 300 million dollars right now and I have no idea.

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Anyways, the real exciting part of my birthday was my cake. Yes, I made my own birthday cake. I’m a little weird, but if you haven’t noticed that by now, I’m not exactly sure what you’ve been doing with your life.

This was my first time successfully making swiss meringue buttercream. Notice: “successfully”. I attempted swiss meringue buttercream about a year ago and it was more than hot mess. It was like a hot mess caught on fire, married another hot mess, and had hot mess babies. It was bad. But I digress.. I re-attempted and my cooking powers prevailed!

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Some things that helped the process go smoother this time around were that I had a candy thermometer. Turns out sticking your finger in a mixture doesn’t magically tell you when something hits 150 degrees. Weird, I know. Also, patience is a key ingredient, so if you think your buttercream is starting to look like cottage cheese, it’s okay. Mine looked like cottage cheese’s ugly stepsister, so you’re golden. Just keep mixing and don’t worry about it. I had the Ellen show on while I made mine, and I do think she secretly had some voodoo that made mine workout this time, so I would recommend doing that too ;)

Chocolate Cake

I used my go-to chocolate cake recipe, seriously once you try this baby you’ll never go back to your old recipe! Click here for the recipe

Biscoff Swiss Meringue Buttercream

5 eggs whites

1 cup white sugar

pinch of salt

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 cups butter, room temperature

1/3 cup biscoff spread

  1. In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine the egg whites, sugar, and salt. Place the bowl over a pot of simmering water. Whisk constantly until the sugar is dissolved and the mixture reaches about 150ºF.
  2. Take the bowl and attach it your mixer, fitted with the whisk attachment. Whisk the egg white mixture until it reaches room temperature and stiff peaks have formed, about 5-10 minutes. At this point the mixture will be thickened and white.
  3. With the mixer on low speed, add the butter, 2 tablespoon as a time. Once all the butter is added, raise the speed to medium high and mix until the mixture starts to come together. Remove the whisk attachment and replace with the beater attachment. At this point, my mixture looked a little bit like cottage cheese, but don’t worry!! Beat until the buttercream comes together fully and is smooth.
  4. Once the buttercream is silky and smooth, mix in the vanilla. Beat in the biscoff until thoroughly combined. I used this as the filling of my cake.

Whipped Cream

1 1/2 cups heavy whipping cream

2-3 Tablespoons powdered sugar

  1. In the bowl of a stand mixer, using the whisk attachment, beat the heavy whipping cream and powdered sugar until it forms stiff peaks and becomes whipped cream consistency. I used this to frost the top and sides of my cake. Keep cake refrigerated. 

Chocolate Ganache

1/2 cup heavy cream

3/4 cups plus 2 Tablespoons chocolate chips

  1. Place chocolate in heat proof bowl and set aside. Make ganache by heating cream in saucepan until boiling and it starts increasing in size. Pour hot cream over bowl of chocolate and stir until fully incorporated. Let cool for about a minute before pouring on chilled cake.

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Random Fact of the Day: The Earth’s atmosphere weighs about 5.5 quadrillion tons.

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Half Baked Cookie Bars

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Somebody please tell me how the heck Thanksgiving is happening next week!?!

It seriously feels like it was Halloween just yesterday.  Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love the holidays but it scares me when time goes by this fast. I already feel like I am behind in the game for Christmas shopping. :o

I think I’ll just ask Santa this year to take care of all the gifts I’m supposed to give away ;)

One of the things that I am super excited about for Thanksgiving this year is that my brother will be coming back to the windy city (from sunny L.A.) to eat loads of turkey as a family. Because what better way is there to reunite as a family than stuffing your faces?

My sister will be coming home from college as well, which is exciting too, but she’s always just a few hours away. It’s a little different with my brother. It is so darn expensive and hard for him to take off work that coming back home is just hardly an option. Having family so far away can really be tough because nothing compares to sharing the same room. Thankfully he will be back for Christmas, too!

Enough of my family talk, I hope you guys are all starting to figure out your Thanksgiving menus! I know I’ve been thinking about ours. Seriously be sure you hit the grocery store before the day before Thanksgiving… or else plan on spending hours in the checkout line :/

One last thing..I actually have a recipe to share! Despite all my babbling, there is a real recipe I have buried in this post ;) Half baked cookie bars, halfway bars, mud hen bars, I have heard them called many different things. All you really need to know is that they are super delicious, and don’t let the meringue part scare you…it is the easiest and tastiest thing on the planet.

Half Baked Cookie Bars

1 cup flour

pinch of salt

1/8 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 cup butter

1/4 cup white sugar

3/4 cup brown sugar

1 egg, separated

1/2 Tablespoon water

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup chocolate chips

  1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Cut two pieces of aluminum foil and fold them to match the width of the pan. Press one piece into the pan lengthwise and the other into the pan crosswise with the ends hanging over the sides of the pan. Spray foil with cooking spray.
  2. Whisk together the flour, salt, baking soda, and baking powder in a small bowl and set aside. Using a mixer, cream together the butter, white sugar and just 1/4 cup of the brown sugar.
  3. Separate the egg, set the egg white aside in a small ramekin. Mix the yolk into the butter-sugar mixture until completely absorbed, then mix in the water and vanilla extract. With the mixer on low, add the flour mixture and beat gently until all the flour has been absorbed and the dough looks crumbly.
  4. Press the cookie dough gently into the pan with your hands, making sure the surface is even.
  5. Sprinkle the chocolate chips on top of the cookie dough and use your palms to press them slightly into the dough. This will help keep them from moving when you add the meringue.
  6. Using a mixer, with the whisk attachment, start whisking the egg white. Gradually increase your speed to medium-high. When the egg white is very frothy and looks like loose foam, start adding the remaining 1/2 cup of brown sugar a little at a time. Continue increasing your speed to the highest setting. When all the sugar has been added, continue whipping the meringue until it holds a soft peak.  It should look like glossy, soft-serve ice cream.
  7. Use a spatula to gently spread the meringue over the chocolate chip layer.
  8.  Lightly press a piece of parchment paper on the top of the meringue. Bake for 15 minutes, then remove the parchment. Continue baking for an additional 5-10 minutes, until the edges look toasted and are pulling away from the sides of the pan. Wait until the pan is completely cook before lifting out the bars and cutting them into pieces. I waited a couple hours for mine to cool. Enjoy!

Random Fact of the Day: 40% of all indigestion remedies sold in the world are bought by Americans.

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Flourless Chocolate Cookies-SRC Post!

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Secret Recipe Club time, again!! It’s crazy how fast time has been flying by! I feel like I was literally just posting last month’s SRC post.

Anywho, this month I was assigned to check out Dena’s blog over at Oh! You Cook!. For some reason I just love her blog name! Dena is a lovely little lady who is a librarian (how fun! I bet she knows a ton of good books, I would love to be around that fun stuff all day) and blogs at night, so she sure keeps herself out of trouble!

She even has her own cookbook available on Amazon, how cool!! So be sure to check out her blog and all the yumminess going on over there.

The recipe I chose this month was her Flourless Chocolate Fudge Cookies. Man are these babies rich! Super yummy cookies, a little messy to make (as most delicious things are!), and really not too bad on the waistline. One thing you want to be sure you do when you make these is to LINE YOUR COOKIE SHEET WITH PARCHMENT PAPER. THIS IS NOT A JOKE. Seriously, you may or may not curse your face off if you do not line your baking sheet with paper.

But of course I would not know this because…well….I like always follow directions. Right.

What I CAN tell you, though, is that these taste just as good in heaps of cookie mess as they do in their “normal” cookie shape. “Normal” cookie shape can just be too mainstream though…am I right?

Flourless Chocolate Fudge Cookies

From Oh! You Cook!

3 cups confectioner’s sugar, measured then sifted
2/3 cup cocoa powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1 1/4 cups semi-sweet non-dairy chocolate chips (for parvecookies)
4 large egg whites
2 tsp. vanilla extract

  1. Line cookie sheet with parchment paper. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
  2. In a large bowl, combine sifted powdered sugar, cocoa powder, salt, and chocolate chips. Mix in egg whites and vanilla extract.
  3. Mix in the egg whites and vanilla extract with a wooden spoon or spatula. Be sure to scrape the way to the bottom of the bowl so that everything is combined.
  4. Drop batter onto lined baking sheets leaving about 2 inches apart from each cookie. Bake in preheated oven for about 10-12 minutes or until tops are cracked and glossy. Cool for 1 minute, then slide cookies, still on parchment paper, onto cooling rack to cool completely.  Then carefully peel parchment paper off cookies



Random Fact of the Day: The names of Popeye’s four nephews are Pipeye, Peepeye, Pupeye, and Poopeye.

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Deviled Eggs

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Deviled Eggs. I’ve always thought that was kind of a weird name. I started thinking, “where did that name come from?”.

Ready for a little educational fun? Yes?! Of course you are (if not…the recipe is just down there a ways, so feel free to scroll through)

The term “deviled” dates back to the 19th century, referring to the use of particularly piquant spices in cooking. In the 19th century, it came to be used most often with spicy or zesty food, including eggs prepared with mustard, pepper or other ingredients stuffed in the yolk cavity.I’m guessing they consider the paprika or other spices are the “piquant” part in the eggs. I don’t think that I have ever had deviled eggs with mustard, but I guess that is somewhat common. Mustard isn’t really how I flow. Then again, neither is mayo, but it just somehow works in deviled eggs.

I found this little bit actually kind of interesting, that in some parts of the Southern and Midwestern United States, the terms “salad eggs” or “dressed eggs” are used, usually when the dish is served in connection with a church function, to avoid dignifying the word “deviled”, in reference to “The Devil”. I feel like this would totally happen in the town where I live, we have no less than 45 churches.

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Deviled Eggs

10 hard boiled eggs

about 3-5 Tablespoons mayonaise

paprika

  1. Peel hard boiled eggs and slice each egg in half the long way (hot dog style?). Place all the yolks in a separate bowl and set the whites on a plate or platter on the side.
  2. In the bowl with the yolks, add the mayo. Using a fork, mash the yolks and the mayo until the mixture becomes creamy but still thick and slightly chunky (you don’t want to add too much mayo where it’s mayo-overload, so start LIGHT and add more as needed).
  3. Spoon or pipe the egg yolk mixture into the egg white halves. Sprinkle with paprika. Enjoy!! Store leftovers in an airtight container in the fridge.
Random Fact of the Day: Soldiers from every country salute with their right hand.
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Week in Review (6/4-6/8)

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Summer has finally arrived!!!! :D

Monday I shared with you guys some Fully Loaded Cookies that I made to get me through finals week ;)

Tuesday I had my last two finals!!! Physics was a rough one but at least it is finally over.

Wednesday I posted some good ‘ol classic Fudgy Brownies. This has to be y absolute favorite brownie recipe I have tried so far, deeelish!

Friday I showed you all the Angel Food Cake I made. I have always been a bit reluctant to make angel food cake at home because of the whole 12 egg white thing and all the sifting and folding nonsense, but it is truly worth EVERY SECOND. And it really is not that difficult to make. Plus I think angel food cake sounds kinda impressive, so just make it :) It’s friendly to the waist-line!

And then today I had the ACT, hopefully my last one. So now that the test is over, Summer has officially begun!!

Random Fact of the Day: Earth is the only planet not named after a Greek or Roman god.

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