People are often intimidated by chocolate mousse, but I find it one of the easiest desserts to make. Mine has four ingredients, can be made ahead and is a hit every time. I’ve made this recipe for years and the key to it’s success is the best dark chocolate you can afford. If you buy low quality chocolate or use chocolate chips you won’t get the results you are looking for. Try this recipe the next time you want to impress, serve chocolate and only have basic ingredients on hand.

Unfortunately for him, his birthday was reduced to a smoked fish and bagel lunch and this cake. A cake that’s been floating in my mind for quite some time. I seem to be drawn to making layer cakes out of things that normally aren’t – like this banana bread layer cake. And if you are a long-time reader, you’ll know why I chose to make a tiramisu cake – just as I tweaked a classic tiramisu a couple of years back into a tropical version.

So here it is – the non-boozy version of a tiramisu cake – fit for a birthday. I used this yellow cake recipe, but reduced the cooking time to 22 minutes because of the 3 layers. Then I assembled the pieces as described in the recipe below.

Feel free to add some booze to the ladyfingers for a little something extra and if you want it to taste more of coffee, drizzle the yellow cake layers with coffee as well!

Oh and I think he still had a great day, despite it not being all about him.

I had a lot of fun putting this little table together for the Land of Nod. Check out the recipes on the blog post I wrote for them.
I was sent the Meri Meri Party Supplies by the Land of Nod to write a review post on their blog. I was not paid or compensated to write a post on my blog. All opinions are my own.

We like to make something small for Valentine’s Day – something sweet preferably, but also something the kids can make themselves. This year I decided to make chocolate spoons – a great activity – fun and easy to make.  I’ve seen a few examples on Pinterest and here. You  can imagine that anything involving  messy sprinkles will be a hit!

Valentine’s Chocolate Spoons with Sprinkles

1. You can use any colour plastic spoon you like.
2. Arrange your spoons on a baking sheet or tray and rest the back of the spoons on spatulas to keep them level.
3. Choose any chocolate you like – milk, dark, white – I used semi-sweet chocolate I had left over.
4. Melt chocolate in 15 seconds intervals in the microwave and stir after each cycle. Once you have smooth melted chocolate, carefully add a spoonsfull to each plastic spoon. Don’t overfill to allow room for sprinkles. Once you’ve filled each spoon, go back and smooth the chocolate a little with your spoon. An adult should do the hot chocolate part.
5. Once all the spoons are filled with chocolate, have the kids gently sprinkle smaller sprinkles over each spoon, then let them add larger ones. If you add larger candy,such as jelly beans, make sure you wait a few minutes for the chocolate to harden a bit, or else the heavier candy will sink to the bottom of the chocolate.
6. Let the chocolate dry and harden in a cool area. Once firmer, transfer to fridge so they completely harden.

*The baking sheet will catch some of the falling sprinkles, but you’ll find them all over your floors later.

We packaged each spoon into cake pop wrappers available at Michael’s. We attached a sticky label to each package and closed them with decorative tape.

We made some that were very pink and red, and others that included rainbow colours – the options are limitless.

I entered my Mexican Hot Chocolate Cookie into an ALT Summit contest late last year. I hardly believed it when I actually won! So this week I’m off to Salt Lake City – to join some old blogger friends and meet a whole bunch of new blogger friends. I’ll be listening to keynote speakers, panelists, attending round tables and workshops – and I hear they throw some pretty good parties there as well. So cheers to a cookie! Go ahead and try it as well. It’s a favourite for sure.