If you love chocolate like I do, you should try making this at least once. I found this recipe on google long time ago and I've changed the recipe a little bit to my liking, since my little family likes rich dark chocolate I usually cut the sugar in half and I added more chocolate. Even my 11 month old daughter can't get enough of this pie, it's that good! Its between a brownie and dark chocolate custard or pudding.. Hope you like it as much as we do.  I know the picture doesn't do this pie justice but trust me it is really good!

Double Chocolate Chess Pie

 

 

 

 

Ingredients:

Chocolate Graham Crust:

1 bag of chocolate graham crackers or honey graham crackers and add1 tbsp of unsweetened cocoa powder

½  c (1 stick) of melted unsalted butter

3 tbsp sugar

In a food processor, pulse graham crackers until finely ground. Add sugar and cocoa powder. Give it another pulse, add melted butter until combined. Press into a 9-in pie dish with the back of a spoon or your hands. Chill in the fridge for 20 minutes. Bake in a preheated 325 degrees Fahrenheit oven for 12-15 minutes. Cool crust. Set aside.

Filling:

½ c (1 stick)  unsalted butter
4 tbsp of unsweetened cocoa powder (I like to use half dark and reg. cocoa powder)
1 c granulated sugar
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 tsp vanilla extract
¼ tsp salt
1-1/2 c of chocolate chips

I have tried it with chocolate chips and crushed toffee, or you could add some peanut butter chips instead or something with caramel or mint chocolate, the possibilities are endless.

Melt the butter. Whisk in the cocoa powder until smooth. In a medium size bowl, whisk together sugar, eggs, vanilla and salt. Slowly whisk in the melted butter chocolate mixture. When the crust has cooled pour the filling into the crust and bake in preheated 325 degrees F oven for about 30-40 minutes or until the top is set. Serve with ice cream or whipped cream or both.

 

 

 

 

To Die for Carrot Cake

Ever since I started working out again, my natural impulse is to start eating healthy as well. I am a junk eater, my normal diet consists of carbs, sweets, junk food and more sweets. One day I was craving for cake and it was soooo hard to resist the temptation to make a chocolate one. Remembering that I have some carrots in the fridge, I decided to get out of my comfort zone and make a carrot cake! This recipe is by Trish of momontimeout.com, she named it "To die for carrot cake" and let me say, the night I made this carrot cake, my parents didn't go home until they got done at 10 pm. It smelled so heavenly that my mom asked to have one of the cake straight out of the oven, it was still hot that when i frosted one cake, the frosting turned to glaze. Not to worry, this recipe is for 2 round cake, so I saved the other one. I waited for it to cool down and here's what it ended up looking like 

My husband totally raved about it too, He loved that the cake was moist and the frosting not too sweet. 

To die for carrot cake ( adapted from Trish of momontimeout.com)

Ingredients:

1 1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce or vegetable oil ( i used vegetable oil so my version is the not so healthy one)

2 cups sugar

3 eggs

2 cups flour

1 tsp. baking soda

1 1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

1 1/4 tsp. cinnamon

1/4 tsp. nutmeg

1/8 tsp. allspice

2 cups finely processed carrots ( i put mine on the food processor so it looked like finely minced)

1 cup sweetened coconut flakes

1 cup chopped walnuts

1 tsp. vanilla

1 cup crushed pineapple in juice not syrup and not drained

Directions:

- Preheat oven to 350f

- Combine the applesauce/oil, sugar, eggs and vanilla

- In a separate bowl combine the dry ingredients: flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice and salt

-In another separate bowl combine the carrots, coconut and pineapple

-Mix the dry ingredients to the wet one, once well mixed, add the fruit mix. 

- Pour into a lightly greased and floured 9x13 or two 8 or 9 inch round cake pans.

-Bake for 35-40 mins. or until toothpick inserted comes out clean.

-Cool cakes completely  and frost with the "Best cream cheese frosting" 

Best Cream cheese frosting (recipe from www.bubblecrumb.com)

Ingredients:

Two 8 oz. cream cheese, softened

1/2 cup butter, softened

2 cups sifted powdered sugar

1 tsp. vanilla extract

Directions:

-Cream together cream cheese and butter until creamy

-Add vanilla and powdered sugar beat until creamy

- Frost and enjoy!

Million Dollar Spaghetti

Growing up in a country where Rice is one of the staple foods, we only made spaghetti on special occasions, not only that,  pasta and meat are expensive where we're from (The Philippines). So when we moved here 11 years ago, we made spaghetti to our hearts content, until we got tired to the point when it was served at home or in events, we don't put it in our plates or simply just IGNORE....then I came across this recipe from Pinterest "Million Dollar Spaghetti" and life will never be the same again. As I was scrolling through the page, I didn't care that it had tons of raves when I saw the words "cream cheese and sour cream" on the ingredients list, I was sold. I actually made it twice in one week..it's that good! no, i wasn't trying to keep the recipe to myself, the reason why I didn't post it the first time I made it was ( this is going to make me sound soooo dumb but oh well) I bought egg noodles instead of Spaghetti just like the name of the recipe...how could I have missed that? It's one of my life's biggest mysteries. When my 8 year old cousin took the first bite she asked my mom what recipe was called and guess what she said "This really tastes like a million dollars!" she loved it! and if you're a mom your greatest critics are children. I'd like to say sorry in advance for the lack of pictures and don't worry this recipe is a million times easy ;)

Million Dollar Spaghetti (adapted from ashleykaitlin.blogspot.com)

Ingredients:

1 lb. ground beef

1 can spaghetti sauce

8 oz. of cream cheese

1/3 cup pf sour cream or plain yogurt

1/2 lb. of cottage cheese or ricotta

Whole stick of butter

1 lb. of spaghetti

Bag of shredded sharp cheddar cheese

1 beef bouillon cube or salt and pepper to season

1 tbsp. of sugar

Directions:

- Preheat oven to 350f, cook spaghetti in boiling water and drain. 

- Mix the cream cheese, sour cream and cottage cheese make sure it's well incorporated.

- Brown the meat and drain the excess oils. Put back in the burner and add the bouillon cube once its incorporated in the meat add the spaghetti sauce and the tablespoon of sugar. Bring to a simmer then set aside.

- Take a few slices of butter and put them at the bottom of your casserole dish or glass pan, layer with the spaghetti noodles and the creamy cheese mixture. repeat the butter, spaghetti and creamy cheese mixture, top with the Spaghetti sauce meat mixture. 

- Put in the oven for 20-25 mins. remove from oven top with the sharp cheddar cheese and return for another 15 mins.  Enjoy with caution as its hot.

Lemon Meringue Cake

My husband John loves lemons..and he loves lemon meringue pie..but since the weather has been overcast  I was worried that my meringue would deflate since Ina Garten from Barefoot Contessa advised that avoid making meringues on a rainy or moist day coz it deflates it.. so i decided to make a cake instead..there's this recipe that I got on tv from Giada de Laurentiis (again) i love the desserts that she makes..but i doubled the recipe for this so i can make a 2 layer cake.. I made the Lemon Curd first for the filling since in needs to cool and set..so here it is:


Lemon Curd

3 eggs
1 c white sugar
1/2 c lemon juice
1/4 c melted butter, unsalted
1 tbsp lemon zest

In a top of a double boiler, beat eggs and sugar. Whisk in lemon juice, and slowly add the melted butter while whisking. Add the zest and continue whisking and cooking over simmering water for 15 minutes or until thickened.

Now for the cake..

Lemon Cake
(recipe adapted from Giada de Laurentiis)

6 eggs, separated (yolks and whites)
2 c sugar, divided in half
2 c all- purpose flour
1/2 c vegetable oil
pinch of salt
2 large lemons, juice and zest or if you only have the lemon juice concentrate just use 1/2 cup

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit or if using a dark non-stick pan lower the tempearature to 325 degrees F.
2. Butter and flour 2- 8 inch or 2- 9inch round cake pan or you can also line the bottom with wax or parchment paper so the cake comes off easily. Set aside.
3. In a large bowl whip egg whites and 1 cup of sugar until light and fluffy, almost like a meringue.
4. In a medium bowl, combine egg yolks, 1 cup of sugar, vegetable oil, flour and salt,whisk until all incorporated. Mixture will be really sticky.. add the lemon juice and zest.
5. Fold in half of the egg whites to the egg yolk batter, until well combined. Add the other half of the meringue batter, folding it with the whisk until the color looks pale yellow. Divide batter into the cake pans and bake for 30-40 minutes or until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool..

For the meringue frosting, i got this recipe from Paula Deen. She calls it Fluffy 7-minute frosting.. it actually almost taste like in between marshmallows and meringue..


Fluffy 7-minute frosting
 (adapted from Paula Deen)

1 3/4 sugar
1/2  water
4 egg whites, room temp
1/2 tsp cream of tartar
1 tsp vanilla extract



1. In a medium saucepan,bring sugar and water to a boil. Boil for 3-4 minutes or until a candy thermometer reads 242 degrees Fahrenheit.. I usually just eyeball it..
2. In a large mixing bowl, beat egg whites and cream of tartar until foamy..Slowly pour the simple syrup mixture and continue to beat on high for 7 minutes or until stiff peaks form. Add vanilla. continue beating until frosting reaches desired consistency.

Before i stack the cakes i brushed them with more lemon juice, not only it keeps the cake moist but it also add more lemon tart taste to it that my husband loves. you don't have to do this you can just use water if you like but my husband always asks for the lemon tart taste everytime he eats something with lemon in it..

4 Ingredient flour tortilla

Snack time, can be as difficult as preparing for breakfast, lunch or dinner if you have a picky kid or in my case... a picky 3 and 4 year old who would eat anything but fruits and veggies. I was browsing through Pinterest pinning away hundreds of yummy recipes that I would probably never make when I came across a picture of flour tortillas. I clicked on it and read the directions, It only needed four ingredients...Four! So back to snack time, I was about to pull my hair thinking of what to serve my "starving" kids when I thought... Quesadilla! But I didn't have any flour tortillas, did I? I did! They are so easy to make. It took less than 3 minutes to put together and less than 10 mins. to make 6 flour tortillas and did I mention you can put the rest in the fridge or the freezer for later use???

Easy Homemade Flour Tortillas 

From Pinterest adapted from grumpyshoneybunch.com (Rick Bayless recipe)

Ingedients:

3 cups flour

1 tsp. salt

1/3 cup vegetable oil or 5 tbsp. shortening

1 cup warm water

Directions:

*Combine flour, salt, vegetable oil/shortening and water until it forms a dough

* Roll the dough into a big ball and take about 1 to 2 inch pieces off

*Pat the dough flat with your hands or use a rolling pin and roll into circles.

*Put the dough on a flat pan on the stove and let the sides cook until there are little brown specks on both sides like you would see on tortillas, like this!

I know, not the most perfect shape but I was in a hurry as my son was saying "Mom I'm so hungry I could die if I don't eat right now." or  "why is my quesadilla taking so long?!"

Did i forget to mention you could cut the flattened dough into triangles and deep fry in oil and voila! Homemade Tortilla chips!

Hershey's "Perfectly Chocolate" Chocolate cake

My name is San and i'm a chocoholic. The biggest sweet tooth in our family both on my side and husband's, I crave chocolate everyday. Today is no exception, I wanted chocolate and I got to have it NOW! I've been on my quest to finding the perfect chocolate cake recipe and I have tried a lot! by a lot I mean more than 15 different recipes and somehow all of them are lacking something or somethings. I might have met my match though, and i wasn't expecting to find it right under my nose all these years... I'm talking about none other than the recipe at the back of a container of Hershey's Cocoa. I've been skeptical of trying it cause it doesn't call for any baking chocolate bars just cocoa...i mean how will it get chocolatey enough? but you will be blown away by how rich, moist and chocolatey this cake is. Oh, did i also mention that the frosting recipe is also a heavenly concoction of chocolate heaven?


Hershey's "Perfectly Chocolate" chocolate cake (adapted from Hershey's cocoa)

CAKE:
2 cups sugar
1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
3/4 cups Hershey's cocoa
1-1/2 tsp. baking powder
1-1'2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup boiling water ( or microwave water for 2 mins. and 30 sec. be careful it might not look hot but it is!)

Directions:
* Heat oven to 350f. Grease and flour two 9-in. round baking pans.
* Combine dry ingredients in a large bow. Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla. beat on medium speed for 2 mins. Stir in boiling water ( batter will be thin). Pour into pans
* Bake 30-35 mins. or until wooden toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. cool for 10 mins.

"Perfectly Chocolate" frosting
1 stick butter ( i substituted 1/4 cup butter and 4 oz. of softened cream cheese)
2/3 cups Hershey's cocoa
2-3 cups powdered sugar
1/3 cup milk
1 tsp. vanilla

Directions:
* Melt butter, stir in cocoa
* Alternately add powdered sugar and milk beating on medium speed to spreading consistency. add more milk, if needed. Stir in Vanilla.

I am not the best cake decorator but I dare you to make this, one slice wont be enough! Happy eating!

Buttermilk Doughnuts Donuts

This is so far the first and the best by far, in my opinion fool proof doughnut recipe that i have tried. I got the recipe from food.com  posted by Marg on May 25, 2004. I don't know how to post the link to the recipe so here it is!


Buttermilk Doughnuts Donuts

1 tbsp active dry yeast

1/2 cup warm water

1/2 cup buttermilk (I didn't have buttermilk, so I used milk and added 1/2 tsp white vinegar and i let it sit for 5 minutes before adding to the rest of the ingredients)

3 tablespoons shortening, melted (DO NOT use oil)

3 tablespoons sugar

2 1/2-3 cups flour

3 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

vegetable oil

2 1/2 cups sifted powdered sugar

1/4 cup milk

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1.Dissolve yeast in warm water in a large bowl; let stand 5 minutes.

2.Add buttermilk, shortening, sugar and 1 1/2 cup flour, baking powder and salt; mix well.

3.Add enough remaining flour to make a soft dough.

4.Turn dough onto a floured surface and knead several times.

5.Roll dough to 1/2 inch thick and cut with a 2 1/2 inch doughnut cutter. I didn't have a doughnut cutter or a cookie cutter so i just used a mason jar lid and a soda pop lid for the doughnut holes.

6.Place doughnuts on lightly floured surface, cover and let rise 45 minutes or until double in bulk.

7.Heat 2-3 inches of oil to 350°F. Drop in 3 or 4 doughnuts at a time.

8.Cook about 2 minutes or until lightly golden in color, turning once.Drain well on paper towels.

9.Combine 2 1/2 cups powdered sugar with 1/4 cup milk, stir until smooth. Dip each doughnut in glaze while still warm; allow excess glaze to drip off. Cool on wire rack or serve warm. and for the doughnut holes i just rolled them in cinnamon and sugar.

Double Chocolate Banana Muffins

Recently, my almost 4 year old son Emrin suggested that we should make some banana muffins since we had some "brown" bananas sitting around. Hmmm, sure not a bad idea! but then he thought it would be great to make it chocolate banana since he loves both of them. He said it would be really yummy to have both in a muffin that he likes and since my 8 1/2 month old daughter loves chocolate cake too, i said why not?

I have been using a recipe that I saw on foodnetwork channel made by Giada de Laurentiis. tried the recipe once and we love it and since then it's my go to recipe for banana muffins! I didn't have the patience to look around for recipes online at that time so I just went on with the recipe that I have and just started adding a little bit of what I think I would want and need to make the muffins chocolate and to my son's liking. I got lucky this time and it turned out to be pretty good and moist as well! So here's the recipe:


 Double Chocolate Banana Muffins

3 c all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 c brown sugar
1 c granulated sugar
1 1/4 c vegetable oil
3 large eggs
1 c unsweetened cocoa powder
2 tsp vanilla extract
5-6 bananas, mashed
1 c semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 c mini chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Line muffins tins with cupcake liners.
2.In a medium bowl, combine all dry ingredients and whisk together. Set aside.
3. Mash bananas.
4.In a large bowl, mix together brown sugar, white sugar, vegetable oil, vanilla extract, eggs. Add half of the dry ingredients. Add  bananas. Then add the rest of the dry ingredients, careful not to overmix. Fold in the chocolate chips.
5. Bake for 25 minutes.

Who We Are

Hello everyone!  We are The Kitchenmaids...pretty much 3 sisters who live far from one another but are constantly brought together by FOOD!  San lives in California.  Maika is in Washington.  And Meg is in Texas, ya'll.  However, we constantly exchange recipes and have learned what works, and what doesn't, to make that dinner/snack/dessert/lunch/etc. a success for the whole family!!!