Valentine: Marshmallow Brownie Cupcakes

While I didn't make anything special for valentine this year myself, I found a fitting recipe in my backlog that I want to share today. I finally found a jar of marshmallow fluff in the Dutch stores and I just had to bake something with it. The fluff is really the ultimate sticky goodness, haha. This recipe is pretty decadent, but that is only fitting for valentines day right ;) I got my inspiration from Recipe For Perfection. But she only provided half a recipe, referring to 1 recipe of brownie batter. So I used the batter from the Oreo Brownie recipe, because that was pretty basic but I omitted the oreos and replaced that with the fluff. This worked out really well.

Marshmallow Brownie Cupcakes: (makes about 12)
- 165 gr unsalted butter
- 200 gr milk chocolate, chopped
- 4 eggs
- 165 gr light brown castor sugar
- 3 tbsp flour
- 1 tbsp cocoa powder
- 1 jar of marshmallow fluff

Pre heat the oven to 180 degrees. Line the muffin pan with cupcake liners. Melt the butter in a pan and remove from the heat. Add the chocolate and stir until the chocolate melted and the butter and chocolate form a nice mixture. Let it cool down to 37 degrees. We don't have a thermometer but you can check, because your body temperature is about the same. So carefully check with a clean finger and if it is about the same, it is all good :)

Beat the eggs until they are tripled in size. Add the sugar gradually while you keep mixing until combined. Then carefully combine with the chocolate mixture and stir this together until smooth. Do not use your mixer anymore. Stir in the flour and cocoa powder carefully until combined.

Now scoop in each muffin hole some of the brownie batter to cover the bottoms. Then spoon about one tablespoon of fluff on top of that. Lastly cover the fluff with more brownie batter. They will expand greatly so do not overfill the cups. No more then 3/4. Bake for about 25 minutes. They are done when a toothpick comes out with a few moist crumbs but no wet batter.
Leave them cool for about 15 minutes.

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Valentine: Bastogne Truffles

I love to make truffles and they are just a great little treat to share or to pack them up nicely in a little box to gift them to that special someone. I have to admit that I made these with New Year's Eve, but because or Valentine's baking attempt failed, I will share this recipe instead. It is easy to do, but it does take some time to roll the balls. I always do this sitting on my couch so I don't tire too much. The original recipe is from Laura's Bakery.

Bastogne Truffles: (Makes about 24)
- 260 gr bastogne biscuits (1 package)
- 100 gr good quality cream cheese, like Mon Chou
- 350 gr white chocolate
- 50 gr white chocolate chips (or 50 gr more chocolate, chopped)

Crumble the bastogne biscuits. We used a food processor for this. Set 2 tbsp of cookie crumbs aside for the decoration. Mix the cream cheese with the rest of the crumbles. If a dough has formed, mix in the 50 gr chopped white chocolate and divide evenly.

Roll balls from the dough. It depends on how big you roll them how many you will get. The original recipe stated 16, but I had 24. Place them on a plate in the fridge and leave them to cool for at least 1 hour.

Melt the white chocolate au-bain marie. Dip the balls into the white chocolate. We used toothpicks for this process, for easy dipping. Place them on some parchment paper and decorate them with the remaining cookie crumbs before the chocolate is solid again. Place them in the fridge until you want to serve them. We left the toothpicks in, so everyone could grab one easily. But of corse if you want to gift wrap them remove the toothpicks before the white chocolate is solid ;)

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Valentines Day: White Chocolate Oreo Truffles

We don't do really much about Valentines Day ourselves but I always think it is a great opportunity to bake something sweet. Or to no-bake in this case ;) There was a very girly sleepover here in the past weekend and I thought these would be fun to serve. The recipe comes from Comfort of Cooking. I only made small modifications on the recipe. But it doesn't say how much white chocolate you need for melting. I thought 100 gram would be enough, but it wasn't ;) That is the reason there are 3 uncoated Oreo truffles on the picture. Like black sheep :) I LOVED these even better that the truffles I made for New year's Eve. They are little calorie bombs, but when shared with a lot of friends, the damage is moderate ;) I admit that leaving the toothpicks in after coating isn't that glamorous but it is practical!

White Chocolate Oreo Truffles (about 30)
- 24 oreo cookies
- 1 package of cream cheese
- 150 gr white chocolate
- some sweet decoration (optional)

Mix the cookies and the cream cheese in your food processor. (this isn't as easy as it sounds, but keep at it, scooping the mass towards the bottom in between pulses) Line a large pizza plate with parchment paper. Set yourself down on a comfy seat near a table and start rolling the balls. This is messy, so keep some kitchen towels at hand. I used about a dessert spoon for each truffle. Place toothpicks in the balls, and put them in the freezer for about 30 minutes. Do not skip this step or else you can't coat them.

Melt the white chocolate au-bain-marie. And coat the truffles. We used a teaspoon to scoop some white chocolate on top to help with the coating. But we couldn't be too generous because we didn't have enough chocolate. Sprinkle the decoration on top before the chocolate hardens again. Place them in the fridge until serving.

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#120 and #121 Valentines bento and Potato Curry bento

I haven't made a lot of bento lately, but I even saw that I forgot to post the bento I made around Valentines Day. The other bento I took with me to school yesterday.

I made this fruity bento a few days before Valentine for Zeronic, but it is awfully pink ;) This is because I also wanted to show a Valentines lunch idea on my new Girly Stuff blog ;) Anyway, in the bento is a cranberry muffin, heart shaped pancakes with strawberry jam in between. Heart shaped apple slices and half a grapefruit. Hidden underneath some apple slices there is a Laughing cow cheese wedge.

I took this bento to school with me yesterday. In the upper tier there is some sweet potato curry which was left over from dinner, red lentil falafel, cherry tomatoes and a laughing cow cheese wedge. Hidden underneath the tomatoes and the cheese there is half a white bean burger.

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#74 - Hearts and flowers bento

This might be the last bento for a while. When my BF came home yesterday, he said he lost his job. But I already made his bento, so wanted to post this anyway. I might be stubborn and just make bento at home. But I am not sure yet what I will do. Anyway, back to the original post.

Since it is almost Valentines day and I didn't make any Valentines bento yet, I tried to make one. I didn't have a plan, so I had to make due with what I got. It turned out as a crossover Valentines X Spring bento. But that's okay.

In the bento are four heart shaped sandwiches with strawberry jam and mascarpone cheese, with bunny picks and some frozen cherries in a heart cup. There are Sakura cucumbers (because my heart cutter was too large for the cucumber), risotto balls and heart shaped sausages. They are stuck together with a toothpick on the inside, since I don't have any small heart picks, only long picks.

Please visit the weekend cooking post to see what more has been cooked up this weekend!

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Bento #10: Hearts for Valentine

Today I spend 1.5 hours in the kitchen making the bento that the boyfriend will take with him on valentines day. This is so not for me, really ;) I thought it took too long and I was happy when I was done. I do have to add that I am very slow at these things, so any other person might just spend an hour in the kitchen getting the same result. I am going to enter this bento in the BOMB challenge at Hapa Bento!


It contains pink heart shaped onigiri, apple slices, also cut in heart shapes using a cookie cutter and soy sauce in the bunny cup. The bottom tier has an egg, meatballs in tomato sauce, laughing red cow cheese and mixed Mexican veggies (corn, kidney beans, paprika and green beans) & edamame. Obviously making the onigiri took the longest.

If you would like to try to make heart shaped onigiri, I have a small tutorial posted below how you can do this using a heart shaped muffin tray. (you will have to excuse me for the blurry pictures since the focus was more on cooking and I took them really quick.)

First you need to have some pieces of plastic wrapper. I always cut these beforehand so I won't have to cut them during the progress. For this batch I cooked 2 cups of sushi rice in the rice cooker. (I really love my rice cooker!) I used some raspberry food coloring to get the pink color. Just add some drops in the bowl with the rice and stir really well until you got the color you want. I tasted the rice afterward but it didn't really leave an aftertaste so everything worked out fine :)


I placed some plastic wrapper over the tray and I filled it with a spoonful of rice. I pressed the rice in the hole so it would fill it nicely.


Then close it all up and pressing it down some more. I do this so it will stick after I remove the wrapping.


Turn the muffin tray around and gently (!!) squeeze in the tray until the rice comes lose. Carefully unwrap the onigiri and place them in the bento. You can use the same piece of wrap several times, but after 3 times it does get a bit too sticky, so it is better to have some more pieces ready.


When you want to freeze the onigiri for another time, keep the wrappers on and just put them in the freezer once the rice has cooled. I got 9 hearts out of my 2 cups of rice so I have frozen some for a next time.

I hope you all find this useful :) It is an easy technique and you can make some in advance like this :)

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Bento #9 - Valentines Bento

This is my try out for the B-O-M-B challenge. I am going to do another love themed bento tomorrow. So I'll probably submit that one. Unless you can submit more then one. Anyway I tried to be a bit creative today :)



There is another batch of my Five Spice rice, and some meatballs in tomato sauce. In the upper tier we have apples and sammy hearts with cheese, strawberry jam and pumpernickel bread. I used my new heart picks of course, but it caused one heart to break. (oh noes, broken hearts for Valentine) It doesn't contain lots of different foods since I yet have to go to the market which we always do on Saturdays for fresh organic veggies so I had to make due with what was left.

Tomorrow I plan to make heart shaped onigiri but you never know with me. I might feel like doing something entirely different ;)

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