Fudge Striped Shortbread Cookies

One of my husband's favorite cookies are Keebler Fudge Stripes. I decided that I'd make him some super special Fudge Striped cookies for Valentine's Day. You start with a simple shortbread cookie recipe and then add some melted chocolate, not nearly as daunting as I thought they might be.

To make your own Fudge Striped Shortbread at home you will need:

For the Cookies:

2 sticks of softened butter
1/2 cup vanilla sugar (you could also use 1/2 cup regular sugar and add in 1 tsp vanilla flavor instead)
2 cups flour (plus extra for rolling out your cookies/dusting your cookie cutters)

For the Fudge Stripes:

1 cup chopped dark chocolate
2 Tablespoons butter or coconut oil

Start by creaming your butter and sugar together in a bowl. Once the butter is light and fluffy and all the sugar us mixed in, add your flour and mix until incorporated. Pour your dough onto a floured surface and knead until smooth. Make your dough into a disk shape, cover with plastic wrap and allow to chill for about 30 minutes.

Preheat your oven to 300 degrees (F). Take your dough out of the refrigerator and roll it out to about 1/4" thick on a floured surface with a floured rolling pin.

Select your cookie cutters (I chose the heart shapes above) and cut out your cookie shapes. Some of my heart shaped cutters are quite large, so I used a smaller cookie cutter to cut out another heart in the center. I will admit, one thing I never liked about fudge stripe cookies is that they have a hole in the middle, I want MORE cookie, not less. If you agree with me, then you can leave all of your cookies without the center cutout.

Place your cookies onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and bake for 20-25 minutes, until they just start to brown a little around the edges. Once done, take out and place on a cooling rack until completely cool, mix up your chocolate for dipping while you wait.

I melt my chocolate in the microwave, but you can use a double boiler if you like. Just put your chopped up chocolate into a microwave safe bowl and add your butter or coconut oil. Microwave at 30 second intervals, stirring between each. It takes about 1 minute 30 seconds for all of my chocolate to melt (I stir as much as possible each time, if you need another 30 seconds don't feel bad-it happens).

Once you have your cooled cookies, dip the bottoms of each cookie into the chocolate and place them back onto some parchment (I even put mine on a cool baking sheet and then stick them in the refrigerator to help them set up faster). To make the stripes, I put the remaining chocolate into a sandwich bag, snip off a teeny tiny corner of the bag and use it to pipe on the stripes. These don't have to be prefect, because they are delicious either way. If you don';t want to mess with stripes, you can also just dunk the entire cookie in chocolate!

If you want to see some more "in progress" shots of these guys you can check them out on my Instagram. Happy Valentine's Day!

Dark Chocolate Peppermint Truffles

Oh, hello there! Guess who remembered she writes a blog? Yeah, I've been MIA for a few reasons and now I'm back for more crafty fun. First I thought I'd beg your forgiveness by sharing these yummy truffles with you. Am I forgiven? Excellent.

Not only did the holidays get me bogged down, I also changed up my work life by quitting one job to go Full Time at the other! Yay! I'm super happy about it, but I have had to adjust to a new schedule, which now allows me to actually see my husband more than a few minutes each day while we are both awake. Don't worry too much, I have lots of crafty projects I am working on that I will share with you soon. Now, on to the truffles.

These are super easy, to make them all you need is:

1 pound of dark chocolate
1 cup heavy cream (you can substitute full fat coconut milk for the vegans in the house)
1 teaspoon peppermint extract
1/2 cup crushed peppermint sticks (I prefer the soft peppermint sticks, but you could use candy canes as well)

Start by chopping up your chocolate into small pieces, you want them to be as small and as uniform in size as possible so they melt evenly. Once the chocolate is all chopped up, pour it into a heat safe bowl.

Next, heat your cream in a small saucepan on the stove top. Stir continuously to prevent scorching. Your cream should be all ready to go once small bubbles start forming around the edges of the pan, we aren't bringing this to a boil, just getting it nice and hot.

Add your teaspoon of peppermint extract to the chocolate, then pour all of your cream on top. Don't stir yet, just let it all hang out for about 3-5 minutes. Then, go ahead and stir slowly and watch all the chocolate and cream melt together into yummy truffle goodness. If you have some small chunks that don't melt all the way, you can pop this in the microwave for 10 second intervals and stir after each one until your mixture is nice and smooth.

Let this stand for about an hour, then scoop out small balls of chocolate and place on a parchment lined cookie sheet. If your truffles need to firm up more before dipping them in crushed peppermint candy, refrigerate them for about 10 minutes. Otherwise, you can start dipping them right away and place them in the refrigerator to set up afterward.
Keep them in an air tight container in the refrigerator and they last a couple weeks (well, if they actually stay in there that long). If you plan to server these at a get together, I generally take them out of the fridge an hour ahead of time and serve them room temperature. SO GOOD!

With Valentine's Day on the way, I have another remix on these you could try: Instead of peppermint extract add a couple Tablespoons of Amaretto and then roll these in sliced almonds! You can also mix up your chocolate flavors: dark, milk, bittersweet, just make sure you have a pound of chocolate (chocolate chips will taste fine if it's all you have, but the stabilizers in them will make your final chocolate mixture a little grainy looking, so go forthe big chocolate blocks if you can).

Friday Food Craft: Hot Chocolate

Before I dive right into my latest Food Craft post, I would like to invite you all to partake in my latest Giveaway! Just scroll to the bottom of my Sugar Skull Masks post and you will be able to enter to win your choice of three lovely books, two of which are baking/sweets related. Good Luck!


The temperature has dropped dramatically the last few days here in Portland, I foresee a long cold Winter. However, my spirit is lifted slightly by the fact I will have all the more excuse to indulge in this amazing hot chocolate. It is velvety smooth and just the right amount of sweet. It even puts me in the Holiday spirit a little early (I should really start shopping for those Holiday gifts).


To make this amazing hot chocolate for you and the ones you love you will need:

2 cups whole milk
4-5 ounces chopped dark chocolate (I used a chocolate with 54% cacao)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 Tablespoons Maple Syrup (you could substitute Honey or another natural sweetener as well)
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon


Start chopping your chocolate as finely as you can and set it aside.

Pour your milk into a saucepan and heat over medium low heat until it is barely simmering. Add in your chocolate, vanilla and maple syrup and whisk until everything has melted together. Sprinkle in your cinnamon and whisk until combined.

Pour into the mugs/cups of your choice. Enjoy!

I generally use teacups for my cocoa, in which case this makes 4 servings filled to the brim. If you would like to add an extra festive touch, you can substitute 1/4 teaspoon peppermint extract for the cinnamon as well to make minty hot chocolate. :)

Friday Food Craft: Chocolate Chunk Cookies

What better to warm up the house on a dreary day than some yummy chocolate chunk cookies? Nothing better came to my mind, so that is just what you get for today's food craft! Speaking of dreary, how sad am I that I had the settle for a crummy picture taken in my kitchen with a flash? Ugh... Bear with me.


For this recipe you will need:

1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature
3/4 cups Brown Sugar
1/4 cups White Sugar
2 whole Eggs, room temperature
1/4 cup canola oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 cups Flour
1 teaspoon Baking Soda
1 pinch Salt
2 cups dark chocolate chunks (I cut up part of a Dark Chocolate "Pound Plus" bar from Trader Joe's)


Start by creaming your butter and both sugars together until smooth. Then, add in your eggs, oil, vanilla and salt and mix until combined. Sift in your flour and baking soda to avoid lumps, and finally add in your chocolate chunks!

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheets with parchment paper and scoop out cookies about 1 rounded Tablespoon in size (I have a special cookie scoop I use). Cookies should sit at least one inch apart on the sheet.

Bake your cookies for about 12 minutes, until golden brown around the edges. Let cool on tray for a few minutes before removing to a cooling rack. Enjoy!