Chocolate Rice Pudding

This happens to be one of my favorite found recipes!
There is a problem with the recipe though... it gets eaten too quickly for a picture to be taken.
I honestly can not remember where I found this recipe, it was not the Hershey's cookbook, I think it was a magazine... how embarrassing! I can't give credit on this recipe!

I experimented with this recipe quite a bit, so I can say with confidence that it can be made with any kind of rice and the milk can take many forms as well.
I still hold that the best way to eat it is cold out of the fridge while the kids are asleep!

I learned that if you add more rice you get less custard in it's own layer, so don't add more rice then the one cup, and be sure you are measuring already cooked rice. This last time I added cloves, a cinnamon sticks, nutmeg, and allspice to a tea bag and put it in the rice while it cooked. It added a nice flavor to the dish, but next time I think 2 cinnamon sticks and less cloves.

Chocolate Rice Pudding

prep :20 mins. Bake 1 hour


4 eggs, slightly beaten
2 cups Half&Half, light, or whole milk
1/3 cup Sugar
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup cooked rice, cooled
4 oz. semi-sweet chocolate, chopped
1 recipe Molasses-Chocolate sauce

Preheat oven to 325. In a large bowl, beat eggs, half&half, sugar, cocoa, and vanilla with a rotary beater or wire whisk. Stir in rice and chocolate. Pour custard mixture into 1 1/2 or 2 quart casserole dish. Place dish in a 13x9x2-inch baking pan and set on oven rack. Carefully pour 1 inch of boiling water into baking pan.
Bake, uncovered, for 60-65 minutes or until a knife inserted near the center comes out clean

To serve: Spoon warm pudding into bowls. Pour 1-2 tbsp of molasses-chocolate sauce over each serving.


Molasses-Chocolate Sauce: In a saucepan, stir together 1/4 cup packed brown sugar and 1 tbsp cornstarch. stir in 1/3 cup water, 2 tbsp chocolate flavored syrup, and 1 tbsp molasses. Cook and stir mixture over medium-low heat for 2 mins or until thickened and bubbly.

Peanut Butter Cut- Out Cookies

For Easter Monster wanted to use all our spring cookie cutters. We wanted a recipe that she could make herself and really I don't have any good sugar cookie recipes...mostly because I find sugar cookies dry and boring. I let her pick a cookie recipe out of the cookbook with the guide line that it have a roll-able dough and this is the one she wanted to try.

Good choice!

Here is a link to the recipe on the Hershey's Kitchen Peanut Butter Cut-Out cookies
As usually I wasn't able to follow the recipe perfectly and had to make it up as we went along.
We had no peanut butter chips or pecans... I am looking forward to making these again following the actual recipe.

I am also really impressed with Monster, Hershey has this recipe listed as Skill Level: Advanced

We substitute creamy peanut butter for the peanut butter chips and creamed the peanut butter and butter together instead of melting it in a pan. We skipped the pecans altogether. Nuts are tricky in my house. I happen to love all of then (except pistachios) and My Love happens to avoid all of them. So adding them is the equivalent to saying,"MaWHAHAHA! They are all MINE!" Hence, they are often skipped.

Monster did most of the mixing...and her arms got tired holding up the hand mixer.
Then she rolled out the dough. The dough was soft so we worked in small batches. It was pretty easy to explain to her how each time you re-roll the dough you want to keep it about the same thickness every time. Also the shapes could be pressed back into shape most of the time if you accidentally broke off a piece... we had a few ducks lose their feet and some poor ear-less bunnies.... But don't worry! She rescued them!

She discovered that the cookie cutters didn't stick if we dipped them in sugar first. I had nothing to do...Monster was able to do this all herself! When she was having trouble moving them from the counter to the pan she solved it herself by getting a frosting knife and using that as a spatula!

The cookie cutters she used were tiny so it made alot of tiny yummy cookies, perfect for popping in your mouth.

I am sure she could do the stove top one with a little more watching over, but I see no reason your kids can't do the recipe the way she did, perfect for a Saturday afternoon "I'm bored!" cure.

Deep Dark Chocolate Cake

Well hello... ummm... how about we not talk about the excruciatingly long pause between posts and the string of EPIC FAILS at the recipe attempts... and just get right to the next attempt?
I swear I will post Fail or NOT!
So I shall attempt to blog while cooking.

Today is the Thunderous One's Birthday!
He is now a Teen!
I set out today to make this cake BEFORE anyone gets home from school.
I was shocked and horrified to discover I have no chocolate in the house aside from an almost empty can of special dark chocolate cocoa powder.
That rather limits my options on the cake... but lets do it!

Deep Dark Chocolate Cake
2 cups sugar
1 3/4 c. ap flour
3/4 c cocoa or European style cocoa
1 1/2 teaspoon backing powder
1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup boiling water
one bowl buttercream frosting

• Heat oven to 350F. Grease and flour two 9-inch round baking pans or one 13x9x2-inch baking pans
• in large mixer bowl, stir together sugar, flour,cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Add eggs, milk, oil, and vanilla; beat on medium speed of electric mixer 2 minutes.
• Remove from mixer; stir in boiling water (batter will be thin). Pour batter into prepared pans.
• bake 30 to 35 minutes for round pans, 35-40 minutes for rectangular pan or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean.
• cool 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire racks. Cool completely. (Cake may be left in rectangle pan, if desired.) Frost with one bowl Buttercream frosting 8-10 servings.

One Bowl Buttercream Frosting
6 tablespoons butter or margarine, softened
2 2/3 cups powdered sugar
1/2 cup cocoa or European style cocoa
1/3 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

• In small mixer bowl, beat butter. add powdered sugar and cocoa alternately with milk; beat to spreading consistency (additional milk may be needed). Blend in vanilla. ~about 2 cups frosting

Shockingly after typing all that I did find the recipe on the Hershey's Site... The link is as follows: LINK
Go figure... I have had the worst time finding the old recipes in the book we are using and they have this one listed as a beginner level cake. They also have a different picture then the one in our book.

The first task is the adventure of finding my spring form pans. He would like a round 2 layered cake. We haven't even talked about if it would be decorated!
I found some spring forms... but only have 2 of the 10 inch ones and one each of 2 other sizes so we decided to do 3 layers...
The dry ingredients look really cool as you mix them and everything blends.
As I worked I thought "What Would Alton (Brown) Do?" and thought, "I need to mix my wet ingredients together before I add them to the dry..." and then screwed that up when I added them and forgot the eggs so had to add them next.

I recommend starting your water to boil after you get the dry ingredients mixed in. I decided to use my hot chocolate machine to get the water to boiling-ish. Again I deviate from the directions. The eldest had arrived home as I was mixing the wet & dry together so I recruited her to turn the bowl and use the spatula while I held the mixer. We have yet to buy a good replacement mixer so I have been using a hand help one. When I was measuring the ingredients I had to laugh at my measuring utensils... a 1/2 cup a 1/4 cup a half a teaspoon...
maybe I'll ask for nice metal ones with the measurement stamped in the handle for my birthday!
My mind wanders.
Where were we?
Oh yes!
With Eldest help we added the boiling-ish water and stirred it to mix.
It.
Was.
Thin.
I know the recipe says the batter will be thin, but WOW it is really thin. Eldest was optimistically supportive and told me I had messed it up, there was no way it meant this thin.
*sigh* I guess we will see.
We started to pour the mix into the pans.... and THAT was when I discovered that the middle sized pan with the bend in the frame was too bent... It started leaking all over the counter! Quickly we poured the batter into the other 2 pans.
*sigh* well, he did want 2 layers of cake, right?
Now we wait.
It is cooking and I may have gotten some batter on the burner because it smells like burnt cake in here...trying, really trying not to *sigh* again.
****
Aaanndd the cake was burning... kinda.
The other two pans...well, I guess I didn't put them together well enough or maybe the batter was just too thin for a spring form....they leked out of the pans and about half the batter is on the bottom of the oven!
They are so thin Thunderous just asked if I was making him brownies.
While waiting for the cake to bake I went ahead and put 1/4 gallon of vanilla ice cream into the bent pan. It is hardening in the freezer. The currant plan is to layer the cake and ice cream together and frosting it as one piece.
Let's cross our fingers shall we?

****
Lets keep the FAIL going, shall we?
They did not come out of the pans.
No, no *sigh* this time.
*head desk*
I greased them. I floured them.
I let it cool for 10 minutes!
What am I doing wrong?!?
This is what happened when I tried to make a snow flake shaped cake at Christmas!
It would not come out of the pan! I thought perhaps it wasn't really silicone and never meant for the oven... Figured it was my lack of knowledge that did it in there. But now I am not happy.
I let it cool!
I guess it needed to cool more?

And now lets see how we can mess up the frosting!

****

I suppose this is a case of All's Well that Ends Well.
Everyone like the cake.
Thunderous said it was a Mesa!
the taste was good the ice-cream really was a perfect center to it.
I guess you could say it is a fool proof recipe.
I mean really, How many more ways could I have fouled that one up?

Here is a shot of the 'Mesa"