How does a chocolate cake as base, lot of bananas, and a stracciatella cream sound to you? For good measure I also included some crunchy banana chips and an elegant chocolate drip. For this cake to look as beautiful as it tastes. My friends, let me introduce you to this banana chocolate cake! Who would like a slice?
Today I am going to introduce you to an old friend I have, but in a new outfit, I am talking about the creamy cherry chocolate mousse cake I already have on my blog. I actually made the recipe simpler and added more cherries to the mix. Whoever knows me, knows that I am a sucker for fruity cakes, pies, and tarts. In this instance, I felt about double the amount of cherries would be just perfect. I am still proud though that I won a prize with the original recipe. The award was for me and a person of my choosing to visit the beautiful city Tübing in the south of Germany and actually attend the chocolate festival they display every year. If you would like to learn more, check out this post. For the dressed-up recipe I decided to go for a 20cm/8inch cake instead of 26cm/9inch cake, with about double the amount of cherries and a much simpler chocolate mousse with no raw egg in it. Sounds good, doesn’t it?
Chocolate and caramel are the perfect combination, don’t you think? I at least find that they are the dream team. And for that reason I am offering something from my birth country Uruguay, namely empanadas. These can be filled with about anything and everything. I have posted the classic beef empanada recipe beforehand, but today I wanted something sweet instead. I went for dulce de leche. Never heard of it? This is basically a caramel made from sweetened condensed milk, it is eaten throughout Latin America and is probably as important as peanut butter is in the U.S. Of course you will find the recipe on this blog as well. You basically need to cover a can of sweetened condensed milk for two and a half hours. All tricks and tips can be found here.
Guys, today is a special day for me. Exactly two years ago I had a horrible bike accident. Including hemorrhage. It is a special day for me as I didn’t get any long-term damage. Yeah, it did take a while for me to recover, but I made it back with a clean health bill. And since this is a special day for me, I always make a special cake on this occasion. Last year I made this vegan Oreo cake and the previous year I made one gigantic cookie with the cookie monster on top. Needless to say that I am a huge cookie monster myself. Yes, all of these cakes are very decadent and rich, I am celebrating life and don’t want to hold back. Yes, this year’s cake is decadent as well. This rich and creamy chocolate cheesecake is anything but healthy. In total we have 400 grams of chocolate and 600 grams of heavy cream. I promise you, if you are a chocoholic like I am, you will love this cake. But be warned, you won’t manage to eat more than a small slice. For that reason I made it in a 20cm/8inch cake pan because you really don’t need a lot to satisfy your chocolate craving. And I am saying this as somebody who can eat chocolate all the time, regardless if it is summer or winter. I will never understand why some people say they don’t need chocolate in summer. I definitely do. If you are the same, this cake is for you.
Today you will get chocolate hot-cross buns! Never heard of this? It is tradition, I believe originating in the UK. Lent is broken on Good Friday with these buns, hence the cross on them. I thought this was such a special ritual and since Easter is approaching, I felt like introducing the recipe here. You may not celebrate as big as you would normally, but hey, I will definitely make something special event even if it is only the two of us celebrating Easter this time.
Is it a wise thing to publish such a decadent brownie recipe with extra caramel in January? Probably not, but I still love the idea that my blogger colleague Anna started 2018 with her chocolate Mondays (in German). That’s the spirit! If you want to be healthier, want to get into shape, and have a lot of resolutions, I personally think it does not matter if you have them in January or in December. For example, the four weeks prior to Christmas I did intermittent fasting and didn’t eat after 4pm and really did my workout regularly. Once Christmas came, I didn’t feel guilty at all when I indulged myself in all the goodness available during the season. I’m a strong believer in eating with pleasure, to enjoy it and to eat everything in moderation. So yeah, I believe that I am allowed to eat a decadent brownie with caramel even in January. Especially in January.
Chocolate Caramel Tart! This is chocolate heaven. If you want the perfect combination of chocolate and caramel, you have to try this tart. A shortbread chocolate crust, a gooey caramel as the first layer and then topped off with chocolate ganache, I couldn’t ask for more. Well, maybe a little more. For flaky sea salt if you really want to take this tart to the next level.
I have to admit, I am not that much into vegan cakes, but with this vegan chocolate raspberry cake I may be converted. I honestly can’t say whether I prefer this one to the non-vegan version. It all starts with a moist chocolate layer cake. I love the fact that you basically have to throw the ingredients together, whisk them and that’s about it. The raspberry filling is also the perfect companion for the chocolate. And don’t get me started on the frosting. It only contains two ingredients: chocolate and coconut cream, yum! And don’t worry, the coconut flavor is very subtle, I don’t really like coconut and I had a hard time tasting it, so I am sure you will be fine.
Did anyone say you can’t bake cookies in summer? Ha, I would like to disagree with that statement, these raspberry chocolate cookies are prefect for summer. Raspberries, seriously, fresh raspberries scream summer all over. So here you go. I love raspberries with chocolate, in my opinion one of the best flavor combinations. If you don’t want to bake this, go ahead and look for something else, but I am in love with these chocolate raspberry cookies!
Update 2019: New photos and improved recipes
Happy Easter everybody! I feel it is time for a decadent strawberry chocolate cake, don’t you think? And this one is so good. It has a chocolate cake as base, with a generous cream cheese and whipping cream filling with chunks of chocolate mixed in, lots of fresh strawberries and some more cocoa thrown in, just for good measure. If you are into chocolate (who isn’t?) and if you like fresh strawberries the same way I do, this one is for you. I already published the recipe two years ago and have baked it several times since then. After some additional tweaks I felt I had to republish the recipe since it always, always receives raving reviews and was in desperate need of some fresh photos.
