It is helthier than Nutella and oh-so-creamy. You can prepare a lot of it ahead and store it in an airtight container in the refridgerator.

Basically, you can choose any kind of chocolate for this cream, but I like dark chocolate the most, because it contains a lot of cocoa and has the strongest taste.

If you are a chocolate-lover, you should just grab the following two ingredients and make yourself some happiness topping.

Chocolate Cream Cheese

150 g (5 oz.) cream cheese
50 g (1 2/3 oz.) dark chocolate

Chop the chocolate and microwave in a bowl until it melts, heating for not longer than 30 seconds at a time. You can also use the water bath method to melt the chocolate.

Mix chocolate and cream cheese until well-combined.

Let the topping cool in the fridge for about 30 minutes, so it gets a little firmer.

Spread on bread, cupcakes, cake and the like.

Enjoy!

Still, I bake for special occasions and I enjoy every second of it, for example these cute mini cupcakes I made to garnish a friend’s present with some sweet delight.

Their name sounds like a tongue twister if you say it out loud and if you repeat it quite a few times, it will blow your mind, just like their taste. Putting kitkat pieces in brownie batter was definitely not my worst idea.

To top the whole thing and underline the hazelnut taste in the candy bar, I put some whipped cream with nutella on top. The Kit-kat piece stuck in the cupcake is just one ore feature to make the delight more intense. So if you have a good friend whose birthday is near or if you just crave something both creamy and chocolatey, you might very well consider this recipe.

Kit-kat Cupcakes

(makes about 30 cupcakes)

225 g (2 sticks) butter
300 g (1 1/3 cup) sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
4 eggs
85 g (3/4 cup) dark cocoa powder
120 g (1 cup) flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
8 mini Kit-kat bars

Topping:

250 ml heavy cream
2 heaped tbsp nutella or any other nougat cream
5 mini Kit-kat bars

Preheat oven to 175°C (350°F). Cut the Kit-kat bars into chunks and set them aside.
Melt the butter in a microwave. Combine with sugar. Add the eggs one at a time and stir in vanilla. Sift together all dry ingredients and stir them in. At the end, put in the Kit-kat chunks. Line a muffin mold with cups and fill with dough up to 2/3. After about 18 minutes you will have cute mini cupcakes waiting for decoration. Let them babies cool properly.

Beat the heavy cream until stiff and finally stir in the nutella. Place about 1 tsp of topping on each mini cupcake.
Now cut each Kit-kat single bar into half and stick the halves inside the cupcakes, so they stand upright.

Et voilà, adorable sweetness.

These truffles area more elegant mini version of bounty bars and might be the perfect treat for your Valentine. Just imagine to get a bunch of mini candy bars in a box, wouldn’t that be lovely?

The coconut mass is made in no time, what is more tricky is filling the chocolate hollow spheres. From this recipe, you get about 25-30 truffles, depending on how much filling you put in. Now grab your 4 ingredients and impress your Valentine.

Bounty Truffles:

160 g (5 oz.) sweetened condensed milk
80 g (3 oz.) ground coconut
30 chocolate hollow spheres
200 g (6 oz.) chocolate coating

Mix condensed milk and coconut flakes in a bowl until they form a thick mass. You might use your hands to make it more even. Now it’s time to fill the hollow spheres, which is the tricky part about those truffles. It works best if you dip your hands in cold water first, then gently press the filling into the spheres.
Melt the chocolate coating in the microwave, not heating it for longer than 30 seconds at a time, or over a water bath. Dip the truffles in the chocolate and place them on a baking sheet until the coating has hardened. You can sprinkle some coconut flakes on top for decoration.

They taste best when cold.

Yuuuuum! I finally made a real cake this weekend and had a blast while doing so (and while eating it).
This new combination of lychee, hibiscus and a little vanilla transformed my fluffy and light cake into a juicy tropical flavor bomb.

The basic is a fluffy sponge cake, soaked with the juice from the canned lychee.

Aaaand on top of it, you form a dome of beaten heavy cream and curd with a spoon. It feels great to just dig in and have a spoonful of this cake. (It should not contain that much fat because of the skinny curd and the sponge cake. – Just sayin’.) I put a little orange food coloring into the cream to make the optical effect more intense and decorated the whole thing with coconut flakes, one hibiscus flower, white chocolate and rose petals. But this is not really nessecary.

Luchee Hibiscus Dome

sponge cake layer:

85 g (2/3 cup) flour
2 eggs
110 g (1/2 cup) sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla extract

cream layer:

250 ml (1 cup) heavy cream, beaten
1 pckt. instant yoghurt/curd powder vanilla
500 g (18 oz.) curd (0,2 % fat)
1 can lychee, drained
juice from 1 can lychee
4 hibiscus blossoms in sugar syrup
powdered sugar, to taste

Preheat the oven to 175°C (350°C).

Beat the eggs and sugar in a bowl with a mixer until the mixture is all light and fluffy, for about 90 to 120 seconds.
Stir in vanilla.

Mix baking powde and flour and sift the dry ingredients over the egg mass.
Stir again on medium speed until the flour is incorporated – do not overbeat.

Pour the dough into a slightly greased round pan with 26 cm (10´´) diameter. Bake for 12 – 15 minutes until a toothpicker comes out clean. Let the cake layer cool on the counter.

To prepare the cream, beat the heavy cream until stiff. Then add the vanilla powder (I used ‘Paradise cream’) and stir. The cream will become thicker, but that is exactly what you need to get a steady dome.

Purée the drained lychee fruit and stir it in the cream, add the curd. Chop the hibiscus blossoms and stir them in. You can add some orange food colouring to for an optical effect.

Stab a couple of wholes into the sponge layer by using a fork. Soak it with most of the lychee juice from the can. Now place the cream on top of the cake. You get a kind of dome by putting one heaped tbsp in the center after the other. Decorate and let set in the fridge for about 2-3 hours

Bananas and chocolate are known for their ability to make people happy, especially in combination.

I found this recipe about 2 years ago and loved it ever since. It is from a German Chefkoch user, which explains why it contains quite a lot baking powder and few sugar. But trust me, you won’t miss any sweetness (especially if you put a chocolate glaze on top). I threw in some nutella and baked the originally one-dish recipe in muffin molds, which made exactly 12 cute buddies.

They make a perfect snack if you have lots to learn, as they strenghten both your nerves and your concentration.

Banana Choc Muffins

125 g butter or margarine
130 g sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 pinch of salt
2 eggs
200 g flour
1 pck. instand vanilla pudding powder
4 tsp. baking powder
1 tbsp. milk
3 tbsp ground hazelnuts
2 ripe bananas, cut into small cubes
2 tbsp nutella

100 g semi-sweet chocolate

Preteat the oven to 175°C (350°F). Line a muffin pan with paper molds.

Stir together the butter, sugar, vanilla, salt, eggs, flour, pudding powder, nutella and baking powder until the mass is smooth.

Stir in the nuts, milk and banana with a spoon.

Fill the muffin molds up to 3/4 and bake for about 30 minutes or until a toothpicker comes out clean. Let them babies cool.

Melt the chocolate in the microwave or over a water bath and pour over the muffins.

Serve and enjoy.