Photo -> Pastel Drawing #2

Took this photo of a stray cat at a plant nursery in Tiburon.

Thought I'd try doing a reproduction of it with Prismacolor pastels.

Meh. I always struggle with white colored things. Makes it hard to highlight.

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Solid Dark Chocolate Almond Hearts

Decided to do a few Valentine's Day orders this year. I'll make a few more things to fill out my box assortments, but here's the first recipe. Stacey's Dark Chocolate Almond Hearts Ingredients : 24 oz Guittard 64% dark chocolate couverture 11 oz local farmers' market almonds, toasted and chopped Heart Molds I think this recipe has a few too many almonds - I'd probably scale it back to something like 8 oz for next time. Usually I eyeball it, but I wanted weights for my blog. I toasted the almonds first for 15 minutes at 350F since the almonds came straight out of the freezer. Make sure your almonds are around 90F when you add them to your tempered chocolate. Tempering Chocolate (Seed Method) The counter tops were at 62F. This is important. If you are tempering chocolate, make sure that the ambient temperature (as well as working surfaces) are less than 70F. Otherwise chocolate will not temper. I learned this the hard way the first ...

Chocolate Chunk Cranberry Cookies

I'd been wanting to try out a recipe with chocolate chunks instead of regular chips and thought I'd give this one a shot. Result: rave reviews from the BBQ I went to at my friend's house. Ingredients (weight not volume) 10.1 oz flour 0.5 oz cornstarch 1/2 tsp baking soda 1/2 tsp salt 12 tbs (1.5 sticks) butter 7 oz light brown sugar 3 oz granulated sugar 1 egg 2 tsp vanilla bean paste (you can use regular vanilla extract if you want) 9 oz dark and white chocolate chunks (I chopped up a 70% bar and used white chocolate disks 6oz:3oz dark:white - you can use whatever mixture you like, or use chocolate chips) 1/3 c dried cranberries Preheat oven to 350F. Soften butter in the microwave. Beat sugar, egg, vanilla, and butter until fluffy. Add dry ingredients and mix. Drop about 2 tbs of dough at a time on the cookie sheets, about 2" apart (I used a 1 oz scooper). Bake for 10-12 min, rotating the pan once after 6 minutes until edges are starting to bro...

Chocolate Banana Muffins with Cream Cheese Frosting

I made these for a potluck. Three people asked me for the recipe. Now you can be part of the three! Ingredients: 3 large ripe bananas, mashed 3 tbs butter 3 tbs oil 2 eggs 1/3 c buttermilk 1 tsp vanilla 3/4 c sugar 1/2 tsp salt 2 c flour 3/4 c baking soda 1/2 c cocoa powder 2 tbs butter 1/2 c milk chocolate chips (but you can use any kind) Chocolate dipped banana chips and decorating sugar (optional) Preheat oven to 350F. Mix all the first set of ingredients together (all the wet + sugar and salt). Mix in the flour and baking soda. Split the batter in half and add the cocoa powder, 2 tbs butter, and chocolate chips to 1 half. You might have to use a mixer because the cocoa powder gets clumpy. Fill muffin cups with half of each kind of batter. Bake for 20-22 minutes. Makes about 18 muffins. Cream cheese frosting ingredients: 1 – 8oz pkg cream cheese 5 tbs butter 1 tbs sour cream 1 tsp vanilla (I used vanilla bean paste) 1...

Stacey Makes It

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