Chocolate Mint Cake

This was a hit! My sisters and brothers have been "begging" me to make it again!

Chocolate Mint Cake (Gluten-free, Dairy-free, Corn-free)
Adapted from Allrecipes.com

Cake:

• 3 cups gluten-free flour
• 2 cups sugar
• 1/3 cup baking cocoa
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup milk (or water, I used goat)
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 1 cup water
• 1 teaspoon safe vanilla extract

Frosting and Filling:

Mint frosting

Chocolate glaze

1. In a mixing bowl, combine the first five ingredients. Add eggs, milk, oil, water and vanilla. Beat until smooth, about 2 minutes. Pour into 2 round pans. Bake at 375 degrees F for 15-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Remove from pans to wire racks to cool completely.

2. Fill and frost the top with mint frosting, and lightly glaze with chocolate.

~ Hanunyah

Colorful & Flavorful Hard Candy Mix

Spend a hour or two and make a big plate of different colors and flavors of hard candy, and mix them together to snack on, or take to a party.

The colors in this mix are: Pumpkin Pie Spice, Hot Cinnamon, Lemon, and Chocolate.

Chocolate Peppermint Fudge

Another fudge I made for Thanksgiving. The recipe said to use 1/4 teaspoon of peppermint extract, but I used about 1 teaspoon, and the mint was perfect. So, I changed the recipe (pasted below) to our liking. Also, I only had Mint extract, so I used that instead of Peppermint.

I got the original recipe from - http://www.grouprecipes.com/112146/peppermint-fudge.html.

Chocolate Peppermint Fudge

• 1 2/3 cups granulated sugar
• 2/3 cup milk
• 2 Tbs. margarine
• ¼ tsp. salt
• 2 cups mini marshmallows
• 1 ½ cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
• ½ tsp. vanilla extract (optional)
• 1 tsp. peppermint extract
• ¼ cup crushed hard peppermint candy (optional)

• Line a 8-inch square baking pan with foil.
• In a medium saucepan combine sugar, milk, margarine, and salt. Bring to a full boil over medium heat, stirring constantly. Boil, stirring constantly, for 4 to 5 minutes (until soft ball stage). Remove from heat. Stir in marshmallows, chocolate chips, vanilla extract, and peppermint extract. Stir vigorously for 1 minute or until marshmallows are melted. Pour into prepared baking pan; cool for 1 minute. Top with the crushed peppermint candy, pressing in slightly. Refrigerate for 2 hours or until firm. Lift from pan; remove foil. Cut into 48 pieces.

Linked to Food on Friday @ Carole's Chatter

Simple Hard Candy

I got this recipe out of my book called "The Complete Wilton Book of Candy". It was a recipe for lollipops, but I didn't have molds or sticks, so I poured it on a cookie sheet, and cut it with scissors. This is a good simple recipe for hard candy. I made it 4 times in one day, and made mint flavor, vanilla, lemon and almond (see pics below). I made these for the Tulsa Buddy Walk.

The recipe below I adjusted the directions to how you can just cut it.

Simple Hard Candy

Make sure the pan you use for cooking is of no more than one to two-quart capacity - this is a small recipe.

1 cup white sugar

1/3 cup hot water

1/3 cup light corn syrup

liquid food color

1/2 tsp to 1 tsp extract

Before you begin, Sift confectioners' (powdered) sugar liberally over a marble slab or a large cookie sheet.

1. Combine sugar, hot water and corn syrup in a heavy one- or two-quart saucepan. Place on high heat and stir until all sugar crystals are dissolved. Clip on candy thermometer. Continue cooking, without stirring until thermometer registers 300 F (149 C), then remove from heat. Entire cooking process takes about nine minutes.

2. Add flavoring and food color and stir to blend. Pour onto prepared slab or sheet. Let cool until cool enough to handle, then cut into pieces with scissors (start at the edges).

Lemon

Vanilla

Mint

Almond

A different recipe of hard candy

31 for 21 Blog Challenge

Creams

I got a recipe from a yahoo! group I joined titled "Cherry Creams". It looked like they would be good, but I didn't have cherry flavoring, candied cherries or half and half! So, what did I do? I had an idea. I used 1/2 tsp peppermint extract (instead of cherry flavoring), crushed homemade peppermint hard candy (instead of candied cherries), and raw goat milk (instead of the light cream or half-and-half). The raw goat milk is from our own goats, and is creamy enough to substitute for light cream in this recipe. The goats that we milk are nubians, mini nubians, alpines, and a couple boer/nubian crosses. For more info on the goats etc. go to http://www.goodgoats.blogspot.com/ or http://www.goodgoats.net/ .

Anyway, they turned out great! And 1/2 tsp peppermint extract (NOT oil) was plenty of mint flavor. I said NOT oil because oil is way stronger. I'm sure you could use peppermint oil, but only a few drops. I didn't want to use up all of the chocolate chips I have, so I rolled them in powdered (confectioners') sugar, and cocoa powder. Oh yeah, I also mixed in some green (and a little yellow) food coloring with the flavoring. I've made them twice, and the second time I used the mint extract and food coloring, but I put it in an 8x8 pan and pressed some chocolate chips in the top. I cut it in squares, put some in a container and gave it as a birthday present to a friend who likes mint and chocolate.

I was also thinking of how many other flavors of these creams you could do. I thought of over 5 other flavors that sounded good. If I make any other flavors of this recipe, I'll post it here, Lord willing.

Okay, here's the recipe I received (without the changes I did):


Cherry Creams

2 cups sugar
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup light cream or half-and-half
1 tablespoon light-colored corn syrup
1/4 cup finely chopped candied cherries
Few drops cherry flavoring
1 pound dipping chocolate or confectioner's coating

Butter the sides of a heavy 2-quart saucepan. In pan combine sugar, water, cream, and corn syrup. Cook over medium-high heat to boiling, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon to dissolve sugar. This should take 5 to 6 minutes. Avoid splashing mixture on sides of pan.

Carefully clip candy thermometer to pan. Cook over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally, until thermometer registers 240 degree F, soft-ball stage. Mixture should boil at a moderate, steady rate over entire surface. Reaching soft-ball stage should take 15 to 20 minutes.

Remove pan from heat. Cool, without stirring, to 110 degree F. This should take about 45 minutes. Remove thermometer. Beat with wooden spoon until candy is just beginning to thicken; add candied cherries and cherry flavoring. Continue beating until creamy and slightly stiff. This should take about 5 minutes total.

Shape candy into 1-inch balls; place balls on waxed paper. Let stand about 20 minutes or until dry. Melt dipping chocolate or confectioner's coating. Dip balls into the melted chocolate. Let stand until dry. Store tightly covered in a cool, dry place. 

Makes about 40 pieces.

Note: If desired, immediately after shaping the candy into 1-inch balls, roll the balls in sifted powdered sugar or finely chopped nuts instead of dipping them into melted chocolate.

Heating the mixture

Gathering the ingredients

Pwd. sugar

Cocoa

Foil