Well, the Baking Cupboard is Decluttered...

I was very good today... until about twenty minutes ago.

Both Chris and I were craving chocolate cake.  There weren't really any sweets in the house, so we were faced with a choice.  Do we get in the car and go to the store, or do we just go without dessert this evening?  I looked in our cupboards and decided that we could compromise.  I had one square of Baker's chocolate and two cups of confectioner's sugar.  I knew I could do something with that.

I got out my double boiler and started melting a stick of butter.  Yes, a whole stick of butter.  Once it was melted down I put in the Baker's chocolate and two heaping teaspoons each of dark chocolate cocoa powder and hot chocolate mix.  I stirred constantly until everything was melted down and combined, then added some milk in and gave it a whisk.  At this point, it resembled the most delicious hot chocolate I'd ever seen or smelled.  However, I decided that drinking chocolate butter was completely over the edge.

I took it off of the heat and started stirring in confectioner's sugar.  It wasn't until I emptied the bag that I realized there might be a problem.  It had not thickened to the frosting-like consistency that I was hoping for.  I added a little flour to thicken it and that helped, but not much.

We had some Keebler cookie 100-calorie packs, so I emptied one each into two bowls and then poured some of the ganache (as I am now referring to it) onto the cookies.  I sprinkled some unsalted almonds on the top of each, you know, to make it more healthy.

Chris finished his bowl, but I had to stop halfway through due to sugar overload.  There was still a lot of chocolate left, so I poured in almonds and dried cherries that I had in the cupboard and mixed it all together.  I poured it out onto a cookie sheet covered with parchment and put it in our chest freezer to harden.  At least my little experiment will yield some candy, right?

Sometime tomorrow I'll get it out and cut it into bite-sized pieces, bag it, and refreeze it.  I can save it for next Sunday when my family comes over for my father's birthday dinner.  If I'm lucky, I'll be able to send some home with them too.

What started this intense need for chocolate?  A re-run episode of Paula Deen's Best Dishes at 10:30 this morning.  She made Chocolate Explosion Cheesecake, and Chris and I both thought about it all day.  By the way, this all could have been avoided if Mother Nature didn't decide that we needed more snow today.  We were supposed to go to a birthday party, and we probably would have been there all evening and had a modest cupcake if the road conditions had cooperated.

Oh yes... I forgot to mention one of my downfalls.  I love to cook and I especially love to bake.  If I could go back and do it all over again, I probably would have gone to culinary school.