The first thing I will say about this is you need to refrigerate the York peppermint patties at least 24 hours before making this. Cutting them up was a little interesting and they all stuck together so it made sprinkling them over the top a little difficult.

When I first made these brownies (before adding the York Peppermint patties), we found that the brownies were a little too fudgy so I doubled the flour amount.  Now that I had doubled the flour amount, the brownies came out a little too cake like.  So now I’m thinking that while I do need to increase the flour amount, I didn’t need to increase it as much as I did.  The original recipe had 3/4 cups, this time around I used 1-1/2 cups, so I’m thinking that 1 cup of flour will do the trick.

Another problem we came across was the york peppermint patties.  Sprinkling them on top and then baking the brownies really didn’t work all that well.  It worked, but the patties ended up getting hard and they were’nt really that chewy.  So next time, I’m planning on mixing the patties straight into the batter and baking that way.  If that doesn’t work, then I’m going to take a step from the Rocky Road Brownies and sprinkle them on top and then bake them for 3-5 mintues after the brownies have had a chance to bake.  I may make these again this week to see if this works, but I’m not sure yet.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter or margarine
3/4 cup chocolate chips
2 eggs
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 cups all-purpose flour
8oz of York Peppermint Patties, chopped into pieces – chilled

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease an 8×8 baking pan; set aside.
2. In a medium saucepan melt butter and 1/2 cup chocolate chips over low heat. Remove from heat. Stir in eggs, sugar, and vanilla. Using a wooden spoon or rubber spatula, beat lightly just till combined. Stir in flour.
3. Spread batter in prepared baking pan.  Sprinkle top of batter with chopped up York Peppermint patties
4. Bake in oven for 30 minutes.

Now, there is one major difference between this cake and my other ones…I’m not using the normal rectangle size pan, but instead a 9″ round pan. Hence the reason why I’m only using one cake mix instead of two.

German Chocolate Mousse
When it comes to this recipe, I’ll be honest, I did some mixing. Basically, I took a chocolate mousse recipe and added what I needed for the “German chocolate” flair and prayed it would come out. Normally, when I do anything with chocolate mousse, I go the easy route and get the chocolate pudding and mix some whip cream into it. But this time, since I was trying something new, I wanted the chocolate to work well and I wasn’t sure how the chocolate pudding would hold up.

Thankfully, the mousse can be chilled up to a day, so it worked for making it ahead of time and adding it to the cake. Also, when I was looking up various chocolate mousse and German chocolate frosting recipes, I noticed a lot of them added about 2 tsps of instant-espresso powder or some other form of coffee. I’m not sure how it would taste with the German chocolate, but if you’re a coffee lover and want to experiment a little, you could try it. Some other variations I’ve seen are: 3 tablespoons Grand Marnier or 2 tablespoons Cognac (either one whisked into strained custard).

The mousse came out really well.  Kind of.  Once the nuts and coconut was added, it really didn’t resemble a mousse anymore, however, it made it super easy to use as a filling.  For once, I didn’t have mousse oozing out between the two layers as I was frosting the cake.  So all of the mousse has stayed inside.

If you’re looking to keep this resembling a mousse and not just another filling, then something needs to be done with the liquid.  The coconuts soak up all the available liquid and I think that’s why it came out more clunky than smooth.  For this reason, I’m cutting the coconut and pecans in half.

Ingredients:
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1/2 cup flaked coconut
2 cups chilled heavy cream
4 large egg yolks
3 tablespoons sugar
7 oz fine-quality german chocolate (not unsweetened), chopped

Directions:

1. Heat 3/4 cup cream in a 1-quart heavy saucepan until hot. Whisk together yolks, sugar, and a pinch of salt in a metal bowl until combined well, then add hot cream in a slow stream, whisking until combined. Transfer mixture to saucepan and cook over moderately low heat, stirring constantly, until it registers 160°F on thermometer. Pour custard through a fine-mesh sieve into a bowl and stir in vanilla.
2. Melt chocolate in a double boiler or a metal bowl set over a pan of simmering water (or in a glass bowl in a microwave at 50 percent power 3 to 5 minutes), stirring frequently. Whisk custard into chocolate until smooth, then cool.  Mix in pecans and coconut.
3. Beat remaining 1 1/4 cups cream in a bowl with an electric mixer until it just holds stiff peaks. Whisk one fourth of cream into chocolate custard to lighten, then fold in remaining cream gently but thoroughly.

German Chocolate Cake
This is my standard cake recipe using package cake mixes. However, this time around, I made this one to be a round cake instead of the large rectangle. So there’s a couple of little changes.

Ingredients:
1 package of German chocolate cake mix
1 (16oz) package of whipped chocolate frosting

Directions:

1. Prepare cake according to package directions, using the round 9″ pan size setting. You need to make two round cakes. Cool completely.
2. After the cakes have cooled completely, layer the german chocolate mousse lavishly onto the top of one cake. Once completed, gently add the second cake on top of the mousse.
3. Frost all sides of the cake.

Chocolate Graham Cracker Pie Crust:
This time, for the graham cracker crust, we’re using the recipe from Terri’s cheesecake.

Ingredients:
8 tbsp butter
1-1/2 cups crumbs (about 21 squares)
4-1/2 tbsp sugar
2-1/4 tsp heaping cocoa

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375 F.
2. Mix all ingredients together and pour into spring form pan. Bake at 375 F for 8 minutes.

Chocolate Cheesecake:
The first time around, the raspberry extract was barely there. So this time, I doubled the amount. Also, the two previous cheesecakes I tried used different kinds of chocolate and some people did prefer one over the other. With that thought in mind, we’re mixing the chocolate. The first attempt used baking chocolate bars and the second used semi-sweet chocolate chips. This time around, I’m using half the chocolate bars and half of the chips, so we’ll still end up with the same amount of chocolate.

I don’t know how much 8oz of chocolate chip actually is, but I used about 2 cups and that seemed to make the cheesecake a little too brittle.  So it’s definitely 2 cups.  If anyone finds out, let me know.

We still haven’t figured out how to stop the top from cracking while it’s cooling down.  If there’s a way to prevent this, we would like to know so please drop us an email.

Ingredients:
8oz semi-sweet chocolate, chopped
8oz semi-sweet chocolate chips
4 – 8oz pkgs cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
1/3 cup milk
4 eggs
1 egg yolk
Sifted powdered sugar (optional)
Sifted unsweetened cocoa powder (optional)
Fresh berries (optional)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 F.
2. Melt 1 pound chocolate in a heavy saucepan over very low heat, stirring constantly; cool. For tips on melting chocolate, I would check out Hershey’s guide, it’s the one I use.
3. Beat melted chocolate, cream cheese, the 1/2 cup butter or margarine, and 1/3 cup milk in a large mixing bowl with an electric mixer on medium to high speed until combined. Add whole eggs and egg yolk all at once. Beat on low speed just until combined.
4. Pour filling into the springform pan. Place the pan in a shallow baking pan on the oven rack. Bake in a 350 degree F oven about 55 minutes or until 1 to 2 inches of outside edge appear set when shaken gently.
5. Remove springform pan from baking pan. Cool cheesecake in pan on a wire rack for 15 minutes. Use a small metal spatula to loosen cheesecake from sides of pan. Cool 30 minutes more. Remove sides of pan. Cool 1 hour; cover and chill at least 4 hours.

Here’s the recipe with my few changes…

Chocolate Graham Cracker Pie Crust:
This time, for the graham cracker crust, we’re using the recipe from Terri’s cheesecake.

Ingredients:
8 tbsp butter
1-1/2 cups crumbs (about 21 squares)
4-1/2 tbsp sugar
2-1/4 tsp heaping cocoa

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375 F.
2. Mix all ingredients together and pour into spring form pan. Bake at 375 F for 8 minutes.

Chocolate Cheesecake:
The first time around, the raspberry extract was barely there. So this time, I doubled the amount. Also, the two previous cheesecakes I tried used different kinds of chocolate and some people did prefer one over the other. With that thought in mind, we’re mixing the chocolate. The first attempt used baking chocolate bars and the second used semi-sweet chocolate chips. This time around, I’m using half the chocolate bars and half of the chips, so we’ll still end up with the same amount of chocolate.

I don’t know how much 8oz of chocolate chip actually is, but I used about 2 cups and that seemed to make the cheesecake a little too brittle.  So it’s definitely 2 cups.  If anyone finds out, let me know.

We still haven’t figured out how to stop the top from cracking while it’s cooling down.  If there’s a way to prevent this, we would like to know so please drop us an email.

Ingredients:
8oz semi-sweet chocolate, chopped
8oz semi-sweet chocolate chips
4 – 8oz pkgs cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
1/3 cup milk
4 tbsp raspberry extract
4 eggs
1 egg yolk
Sifted powdered sugar (optional)
Sifted unsweetened cocoa powder (optional)
Fresh berries (optional)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 F.
2. Melt 1 pound chocolate in a heavy saucepan over very low heat, stirring constantly; cool. For tips on melting chocolate, I would check out Hershey’s guide, it’s the one I use.
3. Beat melted chocolate, cream cheese, the 1/2 cup butter or margarine, 1/3 cup milk, and extract in a large mixing bowl with an electric mixer on medium to high speed until combined. Add whole eggs and egg yolk all at once. Beat on low speed just until combined.
4. Pour filling into the springform pan. Place the pan in a shallow baking pan on the oven rack. Bake in a 350 degree F oven about 55 minutes or until 1 to 2 inches of outside edge appear set when shaken gently.
5. Remove springform pan from baking pan. Cool cheesecake in pan on a wire rack for 15 minutes. Use a small metal spatula to loosen cheesecake from sides of pan. Cool 30 minutes more. Remove sides of pan. Cool 1 hour; cover and chill at least 4 hours.

Raspberry/Strawberry Sauce:
We actually made both types of sauces and we cam to a realization, the strawberry topping is better than the raspberry.  We did the mashing right this time and Jesse smashed all the raspberries and strawberries through a strainer.  However, Jesse really doesn’t like the raspberry topping and much preferred the strawberry.

Ingredients:
12 oz. pkg. frozen raspberries or strawberries in syrup
2 tsp. sugar
1 tsp. cornstarch
3 tsp. cold water

Directions:
Mash raspberries through strainer, throwing away seeds. Add sugar to raspberries and heat in saucepan to almost boiling. Mix cornstarch with cold water. Add cornstarch mixture little bit at a time to raspberries, stirring constantly, until mixture starts to thicken. Cool in refrigerator and serve with just about anything.

On the raspberry mousse, I did increase the whipped cream by A LOT. Originally, the recipe only called for 4 cups, but after looking at the amount it gave me, I wasn’t really satisfied with it. So I added more whipped cream and I added a dash of raspberry extract so the flavor wouldn’t get overpowered by the cream. Something else I did was to double the raspberries. Well, I shouldn’t say I doubled it, but I added more raspberries after the mousse had been sitting in the refrigerator for a couple of hours. It had time to firm up a little and the added raspberries gave it more color and a strong raspberry flavor. This step is completely optional, but I think it will come out better since I doubled the whipped cream.

After everything was said and done, this cake came out being awesome. The raspberry favoring wasn’t overpowering and there was enough of a contrast that really made the cake.

Ingredients:
2 packages of Dark Chocolate cake mix
3 packages of whipped chocolate frosting
24 oz frozen raspberries
1 tablespoon unflavored gelatin
1 tablespoon lemon juice
28oz whipped cream
1/4 cup sugar
raspberry extract

Directions:

1. Prepare cake batter according to package directions, however, add a little raspberry extract to the batter. Then bake both cakes according to box directions. Cool completely.
2. Take one cake and level the top off, making it flat. Layer the raspberry mousse lavishly onto cake. Once completed, gently add the second cake on top of mousse.
3. Frost all sides of the cake.
4. Raspberry Mousse – In a saucepan combine 12 oz of raspberries and sugar. Heat and stir over medium heat until the mixture turn to liquid. Stir in gelatin. Remove from heat and scrape into a large bowl. Let cool for 5 minutes. Remove chilled whipped cream from refrigerator. Mix 1 cup of whipped cream into raspberry mixture until well combined. Fold in remaining whipped cream. Refrigerate mousse overnight.
5. After the mousse has been sitting in the refrigerator for an hour or two, pull it out and fold in 12 oz of frozen raspberries, juice and all.
   

Ingredients:
2 packages of Dark Chocolate cake mix
3 packages of whipped chocolate frosting
2 packages of Jell-O banana pudding mix
2 cups of cool whip
3 cups milk
bananas (optional)

Directions:

1. Combine 3 cups cold milk and 2 packages of banana pudding mix in medium bowl. Beat with wire whisk 2 minutes or until well blended. Stir in 2 cups thawed cool whip. Refrigerate at least 1 hour or until set.
2. Prepare and bake both cakes according to box directions. Cool completely.
3. Take one cake and level the top off, making it flat. Layer banana mousse lavishly onto cake. Once completed, gently add the second cake on top of mousse.
4. Frost all sides of the cake.

The recipe is pretty basic, but if you’re looking to add some color to it, try adding a bunch of red, yellow, and green peppers. They really add to the color and texture of the salsa and I’ve yet to hear any complaints when I do add them. You can also make this as spicy as you want. My mother’s husband really likes spicy hot foods, so when I made this for them awhile ago, I added as many hot peppers I could get my hands on as well as Habenero sauce and it really came out spicy hot.

As for the directions, I typically use a blender to make it since it’s an easy and effective way to do it. However, this method does liquefy it a little more, so if you’re looking for a chunkier salsa, try using a food processor.

The salsa can be served right away after you make it; however, it’s better when you make it a few hours before you need it and stick it in the refrigerator for a time. The longer it sets in the fridge, the thicker it will be come and the spices have more time to blend together.

Ingredients:
1 large can of tomatoes (whole, stewed, or diced)
1/4 chopped onions (or to taste)
1 chopped jalapeno pepper
Salt
Pepper
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/t tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp onion powder
1 clove garlic
cilantro

Directions:

1. Add peppers, 1/2 of onions, and juice from tomatoes in a blender. Blend for about a minute or until onions and peppers are small enough or pureed. Pour into mixing bowl.
2. Add tomoatoes, salt, pepper, cumin, onion powder, garlic powder, rest of the onions, and cilantro in a blender. Pulse blend 3 or 4 times, just enough to break up the tomatoes. Add to pepper mixture. Stir.

The recipe itself is pretty easy, but time consuming. The most time consuming part was crushing the graham crackers and melting the pound of chocolate (thank you Jesse for doing this part); however, once you get over this hurtle, the rest is pretty standard baking.

Once we got all the components put together, the cheesecake itself is pretty good although I am changing the amount of extract. You really couldn’t taste the raspberry in the cake. I’m not crazy about the raspberry sauce on the cake. I’m not sure if it’s the combination of the two together or if the sauce needs more work or a different recipe entirely needs to be used. I’ll be interested in peoples thoughts.

Here’s the recipe with my few changes…

Chocolate Graham Cracker Pie Crust:
For the pie crust, I used the above recipe, but I did change a couple of the measurements. Since I’m making a cheesecake and my springform pan was 10″ instead of 9″, I increased the amount of graham crackers to 2 cups and the butter to 1/2 cup. I didn’t change the amount of sugar only because I am making a chocolate cheesecake and it should be rich enough without adding more sugar.

Ingredients:
2 cups chocolate graham cracker crumbs
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter, melted

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 F.
2. Mix together graham cracker crumbs, sugar, and butter until well-combined.
3. Press mixture into the bottom and up the sides of a 9-inch pie plate or tin.
4. For baked pies, preheat oven to 350 F and pre-bake crust for 7 to 9 minutes. Cool before filling. For no-bake refrigerator or freezer pies, no baking is necessary.

Chocolate Cheesecake:
When I found this recipe, I was debating on adding the raspberry liqueur to the cheesecake and just relying on the raspberry sauce for the berry taste. But then it would have been a chocolate cheesecake with a raspberry sauce and that isn’t what I really wanted, but I didn’t want to use the liqueur. When I found the raspberry extract, I went hunting for a conversion ratio and found one – Raspberry Liqueur to Raspberry Extract – 2:1 ratio (e.g., 2 tbsp’s Liqueur, 1 tbsp extract). So instead of using the 2 tbsp of raspberry liqueur, I changed it to 1 tbsp raspberry extract. Either works fine, it just depends on which you want to use.

One thing I did learn from making this, you cannot leave a cheesecake out over night to cool before refrigerating it. Since I made the cheesecake after Ian went to bed, it didn’t come out of the oven until well past midnight. So instead of waiting up another 45 minutes just so it could cool before putting it in the fridge, I covered it with a towel and went to bed; with the intention of putting it away in the morning. Well, when we woke up the next morning, my cheesecake had a little gorge in the middle of it. It doesn’t seem to have affect it, but it’s not something I’m going to do again.

Ingredients:
1 lb milk chocolate, chopped
4 – 8oz pkgs cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
1/3 cup milk
2 tbsp raspberry extract
4 eggs
1 egg yolk
Sifted powdered sugar (optional)
Sifted unsweetened cocoa powder (optional)
Fresh berries (optional)

Directions:

1. Melt 1 pound chocolate in a heavy saucepan over very low heat, stirring constantly; cool. For tips on melting chocolate, I would check out Hershey’s guide, it’s the one I use.
2. Beat melted chocolate, cream cheese, the 1/2 cup butter or margarine, 1/3 cup milk, and extract in a large mixing bowl with an electric mixer on medium to high speed until combined. Add whole eggs and egg yolk all at once. Beat on low speed just until combined.
3. Pour filling into the nut-lined springform pan. Place the pan in a shallow baking pan on the oven rack. Bake in a 350 degree F oven about 55 minutes or until 1 to 2 inches of outside edge appear set when shaken gently.
4. Remove springform pan from baking pan. Cool cheesecake in pan on a wire rack for 15 minutes. Use a small metal spatula to loosen cheesecake from sides of pan. Cool 30 minutes more. Remove sides of pan. Cool 1 hour; cover and chill at least 4 hours.

Raspberry Sauce:
So I did some of the directions a little backwards with this one. Instead of mashing the raspberries through a sieve/strainer, I started heating them with the sugar first and then once they became pliable, then I mashed them through a strainer. It seems to be working alright, but without doing the other method as well, we’re not really sure which way would have worked better. I did end up using all of the cornstarch mixture in order to thicken it up.

One good thing about this recipe and heating the raspberries first, when you mash the berries through the strainer, what you are left with is essentially jam. Jesse liked this aspect since it gave him homemade jam.

Ingredients:
12 oz. pkg. frozen raspberries in syrup
2 tsp. sugar
1 tsp. cornstarch
3 tsp. cold water

Directions:
Mash raspberries through strainer, throwing away seeds. Add sugar to raspberries and heat in saucepan to almost boiling. Mix cornstarch with cold water. Add cornstarch mixture little bit at a time to raspberries, stirring constantly, until mixture starts to thicken. Cool in refrigerator and serve with just about anything.

When you’re buying the ingredients, it’s important to get the ones I suggested. I know most cakes tend to be moist, but do NOT get the super moist cake mixes. They tend to be a little to pliable and will break apart when you try to manhandle them out of the pan and whatnot. Also, make sure you get the whipped frosting. We tried the creamy, but it tended to ooze down the sides and wouldn’t stick to the cake really well. The whipped frosting sticks a lot easier and I didn’t have to use as much of it.

To make this cake, I used the same method as the Triple Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake, but I improved upon it. Instead of using one cake and cutting it in half, I made two separate cakes and stuck them on top of each other. This made it so I didn’t end up getting three pieces when I really wanted two. The only problem with this method is that cakes tend to round out on the top, so when you stick another one on top of it, you end up with a groove around the edges. This is really easy to fix since all you have to do is cut off the top of the cake and level it out. I’m currently looking for a cake leveler so I don’t have to use a knife, but a sharp knife works really well too.

When we crushed the Oreos, Jesse decided to remove all of the filling this time around and he seems to like it better this way. He says the cream filling was a little overkill, but it’s completely up to you if you want to remove them or not.

Ingredients:
2 packages of Dark Chocolate cake mix
3 packages of whipped chocolate frosting
2 packages of Jell-O Oreo pudding mix
2 cups of cool whip
3 cups milk
1 package of Oreo cookies

Directions:

1. Combine 3 cups cold milk and 2 packages of Oreo pudding mix in medium bowl. Beat with wire whisk 2 minutes or until well blended. Stir in 2 cups thawed cool whip. Refrigerate at least 1 hour or until set.
2. Prepare and bake both cakes according to box directions. Cool completely.
3. Take one cake and level the top off, making it flat. Layer Oreo mousse lavishly onto cake. Once completed, gently add the second cake on top of mousse.
4. Frost all sides of the cake.
5. Take 1/2 of a package of Oreos and remove all the filling. Crush the chocolate sides of the cookies until you get a fine powder. Once you have the powder, sprinkle over the cake and along the sides.

Lately, he’s found another really great way to eat it. Meijers has been selling this artisan bread called “Black Bean & Salsa” and Jesse loves spreading guacamole on slices as if it was butter. He’ll eat it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner until the loaf is gone.

The amount of the onions, tomatoes, garlic, and jalapeños is up to you. I don’t usually measure them, but I do give a rough estimate in the ingredients. I will be honest, about the only thing I do measure is the lime juice and that’s because too much or too little makes a big difference.

Ingredients:
2 large ripe pitted, peeled Avocados
1 medium, finely chopped Roma tomatoes
2 finely chopped Jalapeños
1/4 medium chopped Onion
1-2 finely chopped Garlic Clove
2 tbsp fresh Cilantro finely chopped (or to taste)
2 tbsp Juice, lime
1/2 tsp Salt
dash Pepper, black
dash Pepper, cayenne
1 tsp Onion powder
1 tsp Garlic powder

Directions:
In a medium bowl, mash together the avocados, lime juice, and salt. Stir in cayenne pepper, cilantro and black pepper. Mix in onion, jalapeños, tomatoes, and garlic. Refrigerate 1 hour for best flavor, or serve immediately.