My first recipe post!

The title gives it all away...well, not all. What recipe is it you ask? Hot Cocoa Brownies! I was really in the mood for brownies one night and I normally always used a box mix (I know! But, it's so easy!). I didn't have a box mix at home though, so I looked up a recipe online. I found one that had everything I already had at home...or so I thought! 


When I was gathering the ingredients, I realized I didn't have cocoa powder! How could I make brownies without cocoa powder?! Now here is where I would normally run to the store and just pick some up, but if I was in the mood to run to the store I would have already been home with a box mix in my hand. So time to consider my options.


1. I could skip the brownies (ya right!) or 2. I could improvise. Improvise it is! I looked online to see what I could use instead and I started thinking, what about hot cocoa mix? It's basically the same thing, right? Someone said online that I could substitute hot cocoa mix for cocoa powder, but I needed to reduce the sugar because there was already a lot of added sugar in the mix.


Well, I tried it and it must be good because I'm sharing it with you! Let me tell you, they were the best brownies I ever had! So ooey and gooey and delicious. And putting chocolate chips in makes them so much richer and just amazing! Please try it! You won't regret it. ;)

Homemade Hot Cocoa Brownies


1 cup sugar
3/4 cup flour
3/4 cup hot cocoa powder
3 eggs
3/4 cup butter, melted
1/2 teaspoon salt (if using unsalted butter)
3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips


Mix together sugar, flour, salt (if using unsalted butter), eggs, butter, and hot chocolate powder. Combine by hand. Stir in Chocolate chips. Pour into greased 9x13 pan.


Bake at 325 degrees for 20-30 minutes.


It's that easy! Seriously, I'm not using a box mix anymore!

Chocolate Covered Cherry

It's hump day! I love Wednesdays! Wednesdays are normally when my boyfriend and I cook dinner together. We try to make one really good meal a week, other than pizza and pasta. Today just didn't feel like a cooking day and Mitchell really wanted Alfredo sauce, so we just made pasta. We did add some leftover prime rib from New Year's Eve dinner though, yummy!

Today's post is the meaning behind my blogger name. I'm assuming that means the name of my blog...but, since I'm still a newbie I could be wrong. However, since the username I have with my account is "amanda" (pretty self-explanatory), I'm going to do the name of the blog either way!

"Chocolate Covered Cherry" It's pretty simple really. I wanted to be creative with the name but my creativity with words is not the greatest. I wanted to include something about some type of food because I'm pretty sure eventually I'll do a lot of cooking posts. You may not know it yet, but I really love sweets! Anything with sugar I'm pretty much in love with. I love baking, eating, smelling, decorating, and just enjoying all sorts of goodies and treats. So I wanted to include something along that line with my blog.

A lot of blogs are named something that describes them, like being a mom, or a chef, etc. I wanted to capture all aspects of a really creative blog name. I didn't think I did half bad being a newbie. Cherry is my last name, so that pretty much describes me and since chocolate covered cherries are a real thing (and delicious might I add!) it seemed to fit like a glove.

I didn't think of it until this post, but I actually have a picture that would fit the title perfectly!

It's a little blurry but it gets the job done. This was taken when Mitchell and I tried (and failed...) to make chocolate covered pretzels last Christmas. We didn't melt the chocolate right and it hardened and needless to say, we didn't get much chocolate on the pretzels. We did, however, get a lot of chocolate on ourselves! I don't even remember how it started, and it may have been not very fun to clean up, but it was really fun and we had a great laugh from these pictures!

So there ya have it folks, not too difficult. Happy Hump Day! :)