Las Vegas Dessert Tour: World’s Largest Chocolate Fountain October 10, 2009
Posted by Dorothy in bars, chocolate, cookies, cupcakes, dessert tour, ice cream, information, sweet eats.Tags: bellagio, chocolate, crepes, jean philippe patiserrie, las vegas dessert tour, las vegas desserts
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Let’s continue on my Las Vegas Dessert Tour with a stop at the delicious Jean Philippe Patisserie inside the Bellagio:
Berry Crepe
Chocolate Crepe with Dark Chocolate Fudge
Not only is the Jean Philippe Patisserie famous for their Chocolate Waterfall, they are also known for their French style crepes. There are all sorts of crepes – sweet, indulgent, fruity, and savory – to satisfy everyone. We tried three different crepes:
Veggie Crepe: Crepe filled with Mediterrenean vegetable mix and a side of field greens. Good, but not amazing. Tasted a little bit like marinara pasta and salad.
Chocolate Crepe: Crepe with chocolate syrup, intense chocolate fudge, brownie bites, chocolate shavings, powdered sugar and mint garnish (comes with whipped cream if you like). I LOVED this crepe – Very indulgent and SO delicious! Extremely chocolate-y; a must for chocoholics!
Berry Crepe: Crepe with berry (strawberry, raspberry, and blueberry) compote, powdered sugar, and whipped cream – my favorite one of the three! Sweet and berry delicious! I loved the chunks of fruit and the perfect balance of sweet and tangy fruit. Very light and leaves you craving more.
Pastries
The dessert paradise that is Jean Philippe Patiserrie has a never-ending supply of pastries, candy, cakes, and gelato. There are giant almond brioches, fancy eclaires, a variety of sandwhiches, baguettes, hazelnut spread, opera cake, slabs of chocolate from the chocolate fountain, Sponge Bob birthday cakes, Hello Kitty cupcakes… you name it! I could barely take it all in with my eyes. Can’t wait to go back!
Jean Philippe Gelato
Health Bars for Dessert! June 17, 2009
Posted by Dorothy in bars, sweet eats.Tags: clif bars, gnu fiber bars, gnu fiber chocolate brownie, healthy dessert, lara bars, luna bars
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Everyone is looking for healthier dessert options these days, even me! I’ve been taste-testing “healthy” bars with dessert names recently. I’ve had everything from Clif Bars (carrot cake is the only flavor I like but I wouldn’t call it dessert), Luna Bars (i like the iced lemon bars but I wouldn’t call them dessert either), Larabars (all flavors are delicious, and I would definitely consider them a “snack-ey” dessert), and Gnu Fiber Bars. Gnu Fiber Bars are probably my favorite health bars out of the four mentioned. All of the flavors taste pretty good, they give you 50% of your daily fiber needs, and they’re not ridiculously sweet like Fiber One bars! Gnu Bars are all-natural and naturally sweetened!
The Chocolate Brownie Bars are amazing. They actually taste like a brownie! They definitely have a much stronger and deeper chocolate flavor than the chocolate bars from Clif, Luna, and Lara. The soft chewy texture also reminded me of actual brownies. Definitely crunchier than a real brownie, but as close as a “health” bar can get. The Banana Nut Bars are also pretty good. I could taste the fruit juice sweetner in the other flavors, but they were still tasty. But the Chocolate Brownie Bars are definitely good enough to eat for dessert!
Coconut, Chocolate, and Banana – Tropical Brownies June 4, 2009
Posted by Dorothy in bars, chocolate.Tags: banana, brownies, chewy brownie recipe, chocolate, chocolate banana, chocolate coconut, coconut, interesting brownie recipe, summer cruise
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Coconut, Chocolate and Banana Tropical Brownies
These brownies are inspired by Summer and my recent obsession with Googling for summer cruises. I love cruises; all-you-can-eat dessert AND you get to dress up to do it?! Fun!
I definitely want to go on a cruise this summer, but I don’t know which one. The Disney Cruises look the most fun, but they’re pretty pricey and all set sail in Florida, which means I would have to fly to Florida first. The Carnival ones are a lot cheaper and set sail about 50 miles from here, so they’re definitely more ideal. Or I could just go lay out in the sun by the pool and bite into one of these brownies; I won’t have any trouble at all pretending that I’m in the tropics!
Here's a close-up of the goodness
These tropical brownies have chocolate banana batter and are then smothered in shredded coconut for maximum tropicalness! These are chewy, fudgy, and you can definitely taste the banana and coconut.
Tropical Brownies
1/4 C oil
1/2 C mashed bananas (about 1 large banana)
3/4 C white sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/3 C unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 C chocolate chips
1/2 C all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/3 - 1/2 C shredded coconut
1/3 C white chocolate chips
1/4 C corn syrup
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour an 8 inch square pan.
Mix oil sugar, eggs, and vanilla. Mix in banana. Beat in 1/3 cup cocoa, 1/2 cup flour, salt, and baking powder. Stir in chocolate chips. Spread batter into prepared pan.
Bake for 25-30 minutes; be careful not to overbake (they’ll turn cakey)! While the borwnies are baking, stir together the shredded coconut, white chocolate chips, and corn syrup until they become a cohesive mass. When they have been in the oven for about 15 minutes, sprinkle the top with the shredded coconut corn syrup mass. Let the coconut fall slightly into the batter, but don’t let it sink all the way down. Bake for another 10-15 minutes. Wait until they are completely cool to cut, as they are pretty sticky when still warm.
Enjoy!
VeggieGirl’s Famous Blondies January 27, 2009
Posted by Dorothy in bars, vegan.Tags: almond, blondies, vegan, veggiegirl
4 comments
I did it! I FINALLY made VeggieGirl’s vegan blondies!
vegan blondies
For those of you who don’t know, VeggieGirl is quite the famous blogger, and her trademark blondies are just as famous as well! She’s made many varieties of the blondie, from figgy blondies to almond blondies!
I’ve been drooling over her posts for months, and I finally got around to doing it. And am I glad I did! These are now my favorite blondies! They are so much better than those nonvegan blondies I used to make, hahahaha. These have more taste than the blondies I used to make, and a better texture! But I think the texture comes from the addition of slivered almonds, which I now want to add to EVERYTHING i bake. The almonds give the bars an extreme chewiness, almost cookie-like, which I love. And it has that awesome almond flavor. If you haven’t made her blondies yet, I definitely recommend that you try them. These are the only blondies I’m baking from now on!
supercloseup
You can find the recipe here.
I made some slight variations of my own to her recipe; I replaced the slivered almonds with almond meal, I used plain soy yogurt instead of flavored, and I used black tea instead of milk (I didn’t have slivered almonds or milk on hand). But they still turned out amazing!
Thanks, VeggieGirl!
Pumpkin Brownie Bars November 2, 2008
Posted by Dorothy in bars, chocolate.Tags: bar, brownies, cheesecake, chocolate, cream cheese, fall, halloween, pumpkin, recipe, yogurt
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I have so much pumpkin left! I opened a 64 oz. can of pumpkin puree, used 1/3 c of the pumpkin, and now I have all this pumpkin puree and I don’t know what to do with it. I’ve been searching blogs and sites all day, looking at pumpkin recipes. And these gorgeous Pumpkin Brownie Bars, from Recipe Girl, looked the yummiest! And I actually had the majority of the ingredients! (The worst part of being swamped with midterms is that there is absolutely no time to run to the market to get baking ingredients)! I ended up substituting for some of the ingredients, but the bars still turned out super! I didn’t have cream cheese on hand, so I ended up using fat free Greek yogurt, which worked amazingly well. And I guess it makes it healthier too! I was quite surprised. I must try making cheesecake with Greek yogurt someday!!
Pumpkin Brownie Bars (adapted from here)
Pumpkin Batter:
1 Tbsp butter, softened
1/3 c Greek yogurt
1/3 c granulated sugar
1 large egg
1/3 c pumpkin puree
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp cinnamon
1 Tbsp all-purpose flour (which I accidentally left out, but the bars still came out great!)
For the brownies:
5 oz. semisweet chocolate
1 1/4 stick butter, cut into cubes
1 1/2 c granulated sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/3 c all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
Preheat oven to 350 degrees and spray a 13×9 baking pan with cooking spray. Prepare pumpkin batter: In a small bowl, using an electric mixer, beat butter with cream cheese until smooth. Beat in sugar, scraping bowl occasionally. Beat in egg, then add pumpkin puree, vanilla, cinnamon and ginger. Stir in flour. For the chocolate batter: melt the chocolate in the microwave, stirring at 30 second intervals for 1 minute. In a separate bowl, combine eggs with sugar, vanilla and salt. Beat at low speed until light and fluffy- about 4 minutes. Using a large rubber spatula, fold in melted chocolate. Sift flour over the batter and fold it in just until combined. Spread chocolate batter evenly in prepared pan. Using a Tablespoon, drop dollops of the pumpkin batter all over the top. Using the back of a butter knife, swirl the pumpkin batter slightly into the chocolate. Bake for 40 – 45 minutes. Let them cool before enjoying!!
And I still have a ton of pumpkin puree left! Do you have any yummy pumpkin recipe suggestions??
