Dark chocolate outside, pecan caramelly delish on the inside….

So, you’ve made your Thanksgiving Day pecan pies, right?  Now it’s time to take them to a whole new level of delicious.

Pretty….but even more delicious wrapped up in a ball of chocolate!

Scrape the whole pie– yup, crust and all, into a bowl, mash it up a bit and pop it into the freezer for 2 hours.  Then, the caramelly yummy delish will have firmed up and you can shape them into golf size pecan pie balls.  Don’t put the balls in your mouth yet!  Umm, I just said that.  I digress.  Put the pecan pie balls back in the freezer while you melt your chocolate.  You can get those little cups of melting chocolate in the baking aisle of the grocery store and melt it in the microwave.

Find dipping or melting chocolate in the baking aisle of the grocery store

Set down some parchment or wax paper, then using a spoon, dip the pecan pie balls into the chocolate.  The melting chocolate dries quickly, so if you want to put a single salted pecan on each chocolate ball, do it within 30 seconds of plunking it on the paper.  Let dry and then bite into the best piece of pie you’ve ever tasted. The combo of chocolate with the pecan caramel melt-in-your-mouth-with-buttery-crust….

I. DIE.

Pecan-gasm. Seriously.

If you need to start from scratch and bake a pecan pie, Grandma Ronnie’s recipe is a show-stopper.

Ingredients

1/3 cup butter softened to room temperature plus 1 Tb

3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar

3 eggs

1 c. light corn syrup

1 1/2 heaping cups pecans + more for decorating

1 Tb vanilla

1/4 tsp salt

Directions:  Preheat oven to 425.  Line a 9-inch pie pan with pie crust.  Put 1 Tb butter in a frying pan and melt it on medium heat.  Toss in the 1 1/2 cups pecans and toast them in the butter– 5 minutes or so.

Toast your nuts first!

Filling: Cream butter and brown sugar.  Beat in eggs one at a time.  Stir in corn syrup, pecans, vanilla and salt.  Fill the shell.  *Bake at 425 for 10 minutes, then bake an additional 35-40 minutes at 350.

*Sometimes it takes my oven 50 minutes to cook the center of the pie. Keep an eye on it— it will congeal more once it comes out of the oven.

Happy Thanksgiving, y’all!

Gobble, gobble up the chocolate dipped pecan pie balls!

Might be the best dessert EVER.

HOLY *&%# WTF Bars.  Why the profanity, you ask?  Because that’s what came out of my man’s mouth when he tasted these….They are hands down, one of the best desserts ever.  And they’re legendary in my family.  Many years ago, they were nicknamed, “Nancy Reagan Bars,” and that’s actually still what everyone in my fam calls them.

Weird, right?  Let me explain.

The story my Mom tells is that back when Ronald Reagan was elected in 1980, all of the living First Ladies were asked to submit a recipe to the Washington Post.  Nancy wasn’t exactly known for her culinary skills, so Mom was intrigued by her submission:  Vienna Chocolate Bars.

Nancy Reagan…kisses and a recipe that if you don’t try, Mr T would say, “I pity the fool!”

I’ve made a lot of cookie recipes– this one is unique because of the layers of shortbread, raspberry jam, chocolate and a whipped nut merengue on top.  It sounds high maintenance, but these badmuthafuckas dessert bars are surprisingly easy to pull together.  The only thing I changed was adding white chocolate chips (in addition to the regular chocolate morsels.)

The recipe has been a must-have in my family for the last 33 years.  Check out how it looks in my grandmother’s cookbook, Recipes from Ronnie’s Kitchen…now that’s worn with L.O.V.E. (and some smeared butter).

My Mom’s contribution to my Grandmother’s family cookbook

Warning:  Prepare for exclamations of HOLY *&^% WTF is this???  when friends and families get a taste of the delish.

Ingredients

2 sticks butter

2 1/2 cups flour

2 large egg yolks

1 1/2 cup sugar divided

4 egg whites

1/4 tsp kosher salt

1 cup semi-sweet chocolate morsels

1 cup white chocolate morsels

1 (10oz) jar of seedless raspberry preserves

2 cups of ground nuts (I like walnuts best in this recipe and just pulse them until they’re finely ground in the food processor.)

Directions

Preheat oven to 350.

Layer 1: Cream 2 sticks of butter with 1/2 cup of sugar.  Add egg yolks one at a time.  Then add flour until combined.  Press batter into the bottom of a greased jelly roll pan or a 9×13 cake pan. It will be soft and a little crumbly but will spread out easily to cover the bottom of the pan.

Spread shortbread dough into pan and bake at 350 for 15-20 min.

Bake at 350 for 15-20 minutes until golden.  It looked like this when I took it out of the oven.

The shortbread layer gives these bars a buttery crunch

Layer 2: Spread jelly on cooled shortbread.  Then top with chocolate chips.

Layer 3: Beat 4 egg whites with 1/4 tsp salt until stiff.  It took about 2-3 minutes with an electric hand mixer.  Then fold in 1 cup sugar and the 2 cups of ground nuts.

Beaten egg whites with nuts and sugar folded in

Gently spread nut/egg white mixture on top of chocolate chips.  Bake at 350 for 25 minutes.

Baked to perfection

And, then, the next morning, I was like, “HOLY *&%# WTF??!!!”

Apparently, someone (fitting the description of a 6’3, 240lb dude) got up in the middle of the night for a feeding snack.

Warning: Night feedings may occur

Coming back for more? Thought so!

When I posted the above pic on Facebook, my friend Ashley from the laugh out loud witty + pretty website commented that she made something similar and called them “Orgasm Bars.”  These super sweet morsels of decadence should be considered “MULTIPLE Orgasm Bars” cuz you’ll be, um, coming (back to the kitchen) for a second helping.

Ingredients

1 stick butter

2 cups graham cracker crumbs

1 cup chocolate chips

Chocolate syrup

1 cup butterscotch chips

1 cup toffee bits

1 cup sweetened coconut shreds

1 can sweetened condensed milk

Directions: Melt butter and mix with graham cracker crumbs and press down into an 8 x 8 inch pan.  Add chocolate chips and then drizzle with chocolate syrup.  Top with layers of butterscotch chips, toffee bits and coconut.  Pour the can of condensed milk on top.

Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes until golden.  Straight outta the oven with some vanilla ice-cream?  Fuhgeddaboutit.

But I actually liked them best right out of the fridge the next morning.  OMG Breakfast Bar?  Climax to my day…

Gooey, melty, choco-toffee-butteryscotchy delish

My bite is worse than my bark!

How many times have you spent waaaaay too much money on designer candy bark??  One time is too many when you can make it for a fraction of the price at home!  It’s super easy and melt-in-your-mouth-delish.  This is an awesome project to do with the kids!  I found all of my ingredients at Cake Art, including the nifty little melting pot– just pour the white chocolate wafers in and BAM.  Melty, yummy, easy.  Add your favorite crunch flavor (there are a zillion combinations– like lemon crunch/white chocolate, tangerine crunch/chocolate, cherry cordial crunch/dark chocolate, cinnamon crunch/white chocolate, butterscotch crunch/milk chocolate– I like crumbling mint Oreos into white chocolate) and pour onto parchment paper.  Sprinkle with more crunch and freeze for 9 minutes.  That’s IT!

Ingredients

1 pound bag of white chocolate melting wafers

1 bag of peppermint crunch

Parchment paper

Directions:  Melt chocolate wafers in a double boiler (same way I did for the Halloween pops) or in Wilton’s Melting Pot.  It takes about 5 minutes to melt, stirring occasionally.  *Mix in about a half bag of peppermint crunch, stir to combine.  Pour onto parchment paper, add more crunch and freeze for 9 minutes.  Break into delicious bites of bark!  Put some in cute holiday bags with some curling ribbon and these make great stocking stuffers and office gifts.

*Candy experts recommend 1/2 cup of crunch for every 1 pound of chocolate.  I always add more!

Candy Crunchy Delish

Melt-in-your-mouth DELISH…

Friday night got a little foggy….Wake up with Jack?  Check.  Booze with breakfast?  Check.

These crepes are melt-in-your-mouth delish and fancy enough to serve to brunch guests if you feel like entertaining, or to appear goddess-like to the dude who stayed over last night.  Make sure you make the filling first, because you’ll need to let it sit out for about 30 minutes before stuffing the crepes.  The crepe batter cooks quickly, so you can fry those up last.

Fillling: In small sauce pan, melt down on medium heat:

1 jar of seedless raspberry jam

1 cup fresh raspberries

1 tsp Jack Daniels (or your favorite bourbon)

1 8oz package of full fat cream cheese.

Once filling is smooth and melted down, take off heat and let sit out for 30 minutes to thicken.

Crepe Batter: *I don’t mix dry then add wet ingredients, I just pour it all in and mix it up– but feel free to mix in any order you feel like…

*Mix together until smooth:

1 cup flour

2 eggs

1 cup milk

1/4 cup water

3 Tb melted butter

1 tsp sugar

1 tsp vanilla

Heat up a small omelet pan on medium/high heat and spray with cooking spray.  Let the pan heat up before you spoon batter in– I usually do about a 1/4 cup per crepe.  Inevitably, I make the mistake of pouring more in and they get too thick.  Always do a tester to get those carbs in to help your Saturday morning hangover check the consistency and flavor!

After the filling has cooled for 30 minutes, spoon several Tb of filling into center of crepes and fold with seam side down.  Drizzle more of the sauce on top of the crepes and top with fresh raspberries to garnish.

Brunch is served!  And now you can take your bourbon, er, Jack, back to bed with you…