Desserts That Will Help You Achieve True Happiness

So as I sit here nursing an infant who had some shots yesterday and has been in need of extra TLC ever since (Although seriously, infant, you get almost all the TLC around here. My husband has taken to smelling my discarded shirts just to pretend he's close to me. Welcome to new babyhood!), I think sharing some seriously awesome sweets recipes we've tried out lately is in order.

Please read this post then immediately run to the grocery store for the ingredients and then promptly return home to make everything at the same time. You'll gain 10 pounds and will be so happy that you did. Amen.

One thing you should know before continuing is that I do not cut fat by substituing fake crap for the real live awesome crap. (That didn't sound good. Moving on.) I go through lots of butter. I skip shortening and vegetable oil whenever possible. When something calls for heavy cream or whole milk or sugar, I use heavy cream, whole milk, or sugar. Look. We eat really well around here. Really healthfully. Heathily. Whatever. My husband went grocery shopping for us this week and came back with this declaration: My list included absolutely nothing processed or prepackaged, and I tried to stay as seasonal as possible with my produce. This is just what we do. So when I want to make some cookies for an occasional treat, I make them and I don't apologize for their fat content. For heaven's sake, you want the cookies to be good, don't you? I mean, you don't eat cookies to lose weight. You eat cookies because you want to eat cookies.

[Note: A business opened in town recently called 'Dr. Donuts' and it serves low-fat and no-fat donuts. My mind is blown at the stupidity of this concept.]

First up: Dana's pumpkin chocolate chip cookies.

from MADE

These are the bomb-dot-com, and I would encourage you to slowly back away from the shortening and use real live butter. Not only is shortening naaasty, but the butter makes it taste better, honest john. I've done it both ways, so I know. If you make it with butter and have the time, stick the dough in the fridge for a little while to prevent spreading in the oven. I've done it with butter without chilling and had good results too, so whatev. Double the recipe because they go fast. And definitely make the icing. The cookies are good on their own, but they're not super sweet, and the icing is a good complement.

Just so you know: these go from awesome to HOLY CARP!!!1! if you use dark chocolate chunks instead of plain ole semi-sweet chips. This is The Professor's discovery. He is a god.

Next: More cookies, this time in the form of biscotti. I am a huge fan of plain, no-frills cookies: shortbread (that's my favorite Girl Scout cookie, no joke), biscotti, butter cookies, etc. I don't like a cookie recipe where SWEET is the only thing it has going for it. I'd rather have a slightly sweet, buttery rich cookie and a strong cup of coffee over oodles of chocolate and sugar any day. Something made me have a hankering for biscotti the other day, and I found this recipe, which ended up being a winner. Big winner, folks, and really simple to put together. This is a very basic biscotti recipe that can go a million different directions with only a little imagination. Anise doesn't really float my boat, so I substituted with some vanilla and almond extracts. I also didn't let the baked rolls of dough cool before cutting them; wanting to avoid lots of crumbles, I just took a pizza cutter and sliced the cookies straight out of the oven. Oh, and this is one of those recipes where you should stick with vegetable/canola oil. Sorry, all butter enthusiasts (myself included), but oil is where it's at.

So to serve with the plain biscotti the other night, I decided to make some hot chocolate. I told my family the other day that trying out lots of hot chocolate recipes is going to get me through these dismal winter days, and my mom quipped, "Well if Christine ends up gaining 50 pounds in a couple months, we'll know why." Ha. She's right though, I might need to start using skim milk.

from Savory Sweet Life

Anyway, the hot chocolate. I like Starbuck's salted caramel mochas, so I settled on this copycat recipe. And I did every bit of it from scratch, and it was divine. I recommend you take the time to do the same. The caramel. The chocolate ganache. Doooo it, you'll experience new heights of hot chocolate ecstasy. For the ganache I cut up bars of sweet dark chocolate and the end result may have slapped me in the face, it was so strong.

And folks. Do not, as she suggests, bust out the whipped cream in a can. Please. If you're going to go to this much effort, just take a few extra minutes and whip up some real cream with some real sugar. There is no telling what is in the Redi Whip can. (True fact: Packaged whipped cream is banned from our home. Always has been, always will be, world without end, amen. I am a whipped cream snob.) Also, I have completely switched to turbinado sugar in place of white granulated sugar, and it works great for all these recipes.

Those are my recent discoveries in desserts, and I hope you get a chance to make one or all of them and experience true happiness. I'm not saying true happiness isn't possible without these desserts; I'm just saying it's probably pretty difficult to achieve.

Now I'm off to suck down the last of the hot chocolate and complain to anyone who will listen how unfortunate it is that the ice outside prevents me from running and burning off the calories.

How very, very unfortunate.