Chocolate Carrot Cake

Today is cold and tomorrow is Valentine's Day which ended up being the perfect reason to bake a cake with our kids! We added a vegetable and cut down the sugar to try to make our chocolatey treat bit more kid friendly.

Cake:

4 eggs
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/4 cups BCF Extra Virgin Canola Oil
1/2 cup cocoa
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
3 cups shredded carrot
2 cups BCF Partially Sifted Flour

Beat together the eggs, sugar, oil, cocoa, baking soda and salt. Add in the carrot and mix well. Add the flour and mix just until combined. Pour batter into two buttered and floured cake pans. Bake at 350F for 25 minutes. While your cake cools, make the icing.

I caught Levi sharing the left over icing with Simone while I was taking a picture of the cake. It was so sweet (the scene, not the frosting) that I had to take a picture.

Frosting:

1/4 cup butter, softened
1 pkg cream cheese
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups icing sugar
1/2 cup cocoa
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp chili powder
splash of milk

Beat together your butter and cream cheese until the mixture is fluffy. Add in the vanilla, cocoa, cinnamon and chili powder. Add the icing sugar and beat well. If it's too thick add a splash or two of milk.

Cookie Dough Cupcakes

Today is Jeff’s champagne birthday so I made him a chocolate cupcake (made with our cupcake mix of course) stuffed with cookie dough and a cookie dough icing. It’s just a slightly more grown up way to eat cookie dough. 

Cookie Dough Cupcakes

BCF Chocolate Cupcake Mix (1/2 cup milk, 1/4 cup oil, 1 egg, 1/2 cup boiling water)
½ cup butter
¼ cup sugar
½ cup brown sugar
3 tbsp milk or cream
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/3 cup Partially Sifted Flour
2/3 cup mini chocolate chips

Beat butter, sugars, milk and vanilla together until fluffy. Add in the flour and mix well. Finally, add the chocolate chips. Roll the dough into about 18 balls and FREEZE them. You want them to thaw in the cupcakes, not cook.

Prepare the BCF Chocolate Cupcake Mix as directed except spread the batter into 18 cups rather than 12. Add a frozen cookie dough ball into each cup and bake for 15 minutes at 350°F.

Cookie Dough Frosting

¾ cup butter
1/3 cup brown sugar
½ cup Partially Sifted Flour
1 tsp vanilla
1 tbsp milk or cream
2 cups icing sugar
mini chocolate chips to decorate

Beat the butter until fluffy. Add in the brown sugar, flour, vanilla and milk and beat well. Slowly add in the icing sugar until you get the consistency you want. After icing your cooled cupcakes, sprinkle with some mini chocolate chips. 

Chocolate Banana Bread

Give old, brown bananas new life by baking them into a chocolaty bread. This is one of our favourite breakfast treats. 

2 eggs
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup oil
4 bananas, mashed
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups BCF Partially Sifted Flour
1 cup add ins (chocolate chips, nuts, coconut, caramel chunks, etc)

Beat together eggs, sugar and oil. Add in bananas, vanilla, cocoa, baking powder and salt and mix well. Add in flour and mix just until moist. Add in your extra goodies (I used half a cup of chocolate chunks and half a cup of coconut in the loaf pictured) and mix just until combined. Pour batter into a greased loaf pan and bake at 350°F for an hour or until a toothpick comes out clean. If you're worried that the outside is getting too dark before the middle is completely cooked, just turn off the oven and leave the door closed for 15 minutes.

Salted Caramel Cupcakes

March is birthday month in our home; three out of four of us are March babies. To celebrate, we made Salted Caramel Cupcakes. They make such a great birthday treat.

Cupcakes
Brule Creek Farms Chocolate Cupcake Mix, prepared as instructed you will need:
½ cup milk
1 egg
¼ cup oil
½ cup boiling water

Icing
1 cup salted butter
1/3 cup caramel sauce
dash of salt
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups icing sugar
extra caramel sauce
coarse sea salt

Prepare the BCF Chocolate Cupcake Mix as instructed. Allow to cool. I scooped out a bit of each cupcake with a melon baller and filled with some more caramel sauce before icing. 

To make the icing, whip the butter until it is light and fluffy. Add in the caramel sauce, vanilla and a sprinkling of salt and whip again. Slowly add in the icing sugar. Once ready, ice your cupcakes as you like; I used a piping bag with a Wilton 1M tip. Decorate your cupcakes with a drizzle of caramel sauce and light sprinkling of coarse sea salt. So yummy!

Chocolate Buttermilk Pie

This pie is incredibly decadent. Eat it while it’s still warm and it has the taste and texture of brownie batter, cold it’s like a pie full of truffle. It's so delicious that it was toddler approved – thanks Levi (I put out the pie to take a picture or two. I turned around to grab my camera and caught the little guy red handed. It was the last piece…)

2 uncooked pie shells
1 ½ cups chocolate chips
½ cup butter
3 eggs
1 ½ cups sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup buttermilk
¼ cup Partially Sifted Flour

Melt the chocolate chips and butter together on a double broiler. Set aside to cool a bit. Beat eggs until frothy then add sugar, vanilla, buttermilk, flour and melted chocolate beating well between each addition.

Pour the batter evenly into pie shells and bake at 350°F for about an hour or until centre is firm and top is crusty. I used a cookie sheet under each pie to catch any overflow. Eat warm or chilled – both are delicious.