Forget about the shake. How about a few scoops of mint chip ice cream covered in chocolate sauce, marshmallows, and sprinkles. It doesn't take much, when it comes to ice cream, to make me happy. Keep it simple and enjoy a quick and easy festive sundae for St. Patty's. All the extra awesomeness, like green straws and sparkling clover trimmings make the dessert that much better, without too much of a fuss. To avoid sticking wire wrapped embellishments (like the one pictured above) directly into your food, slide the accessory into a straw first, then add to decorate. A sweet treat that looks as great as it tastes will impress the kids and maybe a husband, too. xo RCN
Chocolate Pistachio Cupcakes
I'm what they call a cupcake triple threat. I love to bake them, decorate them, and eat them. My absolute favorite is chocolate cake with vanilla buttercream frosting. Zach usually has trouble remembering my favorite, so on my birthday he always orders every possibly combination from the bakery. Even if he forgets my favorite, I can't get mad at his solution. He has it covered. It works, there is always at least one chocolate flavored cupcake with buttercream frosting in the bunch.
I decided to try a new recipe that has some additional ingredients aside from cocoa powder. The original recipe I referred to calls for walnuts. I swapped the walnuts with pistachios; a nut I like much more. I paired the chocolate pistachio with a buttercream frosting and finished the cupcakes off with Nutcracker decorations and all the winter white fairyesque toppings you can imagine. Delightful! xo RCN
Cupcake Recipe (makes one dozen cupcakes):
1 cup of pistachios (original recipe calls for 1 heaping cup of walnuts)
1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cups sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3/4 cups water
Preheat oven to 350F and prep cupcake tin with cupcake liners. Grind pistachios in blender or food processor. I mixed them in a blender until they were very fine and added 1 teaspoon of water into the nuts while I mixed them.
Mix flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt in small bowl, set aside. Then in a larger bowl, whisk finely ground pistachios with sugar until blended. Add one egg at a time, followed by the vanilla extract. Sift a third of the cocoa/flour mixture into the pistachio mixture. Add 1/2 the water, continue alternating dry ingredients and water until all combined, ending with dry ingredients. Scoop the mixture into the cupcake liners and bake for about 20-25 minutes. I always use the toothpick method to help determine when my cupcakes are done. If you insert a toothpick into center of cake and it comes out clean, then finito!
Buttercream Recipe:
1 stick of salted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 small box of confectioners sugar
1 1/2 Tablespoons of Milk
Soften butter to room temp and then mix until fluffy with wooden spoon or hand mixer. Add vanilla and continue to mix. Sift in the confectioners sugar and continue to mix all ingredients. Lastly, add the milk. You can always add more milk at the end if you need to make the buttercream softer. I usually like buttercream relatively thick.
Decorations:
A pinch of unsweetened coconut per cupcake
A few handfuls of vanilla chips and marshmallows divided between all cupcakes
A sprinkle of pearlized Wilton decorative candy balls per cupcake
Meri Meri cupcake kit - I used the Nutcracker kit which is sold out of a few stores, but available on ebay. I also recently saw this set at Homegoods. If you are still looking for something holiday, Meri Meri still has an adorable santa/reindeer kit available online HERE.
Meri Meri has some of the most adorable cupcake kits, you can find them all HERE.
Chocolate Pretzel Wreaths
I love chocolate pretzel nests for Easter, so I thought why not turn the nests into wreaths and make it a Christmas themed dessert. Putting the wreaths together is a little messy with handling a lot of melted chocolate, but well worth it in the end.
For about 18 wreaths, you will need:
1 reg size bag pretzel sticks (you will use about 1/2-3/4 bag)
3 tablespoons coconut oil
12 ounce bag of chocolate chips
1/2 cup green colored chocolate chips
Parchment paper and zip lock bag
Red and white/pearl decorating balls (various sizes)
First, prep the holly decoration. Melt green chips in microwave on defrost setting for about two minutes. Stir and mix until smooth and melted. It will not become as liquid like as the chocolate chips you will later melt for the wreaths, but that is okay. Put green melted chocolate in a zip bag and cut corner off. Squirt out small groupings of the green chocolate in leaf forms onto parchment paper. Let sit for a half hour.
First, melt the chocolate and coconut oil in a bowl in the microwave. Zap for two minutes, remove and stir. If the chocolate does not melt to liquid form, zap for another 30 seconds or so. Once chocolate is stirred and melted, break up the pretzel sticks and add them into the chocolate. Cover in chocolate and use hands to form into wreath shapes on parchment paper. Sit out for about ten minutes after shaping wreaths and then sit in refrigerator for ten minutes before adding decorations. You do not want the chocolate to be completely hardened before you decorate. Eat up! xo RCN