Death by pie. That's what will happen to me if I don't pawn off the rest of this pie to my co-workers.

This Mocha Silk Pie from the Pioneer Woman Ree Drummond is luxurious and rich. It's chocolately and thick, yet deceptively light in texture at the same time. The crust is slightly sandy with chopped pecans, brown sugar, grated chocolate and Kahlua.

To achieve the silky, pudding-like texture of the filling, four eggs are individually whipped into a mixture of butter, chocolate, sugar, vanilla, and Kahlua, with 5 minutes of beating after the addition of each egg. As you mix, the filling magically doubles in volume. It was hard to refrain from eating globs of the fluffy filling mid-beating.

A little elbow grease, well, maybe a lot, was needed to grate the chocolate for the crust, but the results were well worth it. This no-bake pie needs a few good hours to chill in the fridge before serving, so make sure to plan accordingly.

• The final product.

• Voila! A crust of pecans, chocolate, brown sugar and Kahlua.

• The cast of characters.

Mocha Silk Pie

Adapted from The Pioneer Woman

Ingredients

Crust:

1 cup pecans, finely chopped

½ cup packed brown sugar

2 ounces, weight semi-sweet chocolate, grated

dash of salt

1 Tablespoon Kahlua

Filling:

2 sticks butter (salted)

1-½ cups sugar

2 teaspoons instant coffee granules

1 teaspoon Kahlua

3 ounces, weight semi-sweet (or bittersweet) chocolate

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

4 whole large eggs

Preparation Instructions:

To make the crust, combine chopped pecans, brown sugar, grated chocolate, and salt. Stir with a fork to combine, then drizzle in Kahlua, stirring until combined. Press mixture into a pie pan, bringing it up the sides a bit. *Do not bake* Set aside or refrigerate until needed.

For the filling, in small microwave safe bowl, melt 3 ounces chocolate until stirrable (about 45 seconds on high). Set aside to cool.

In a large bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, beat butter, sugar, 2 teaspoons instant coffee, and 1 teaspoon Kahlua until fluffy, about 1 1/2 minutes. When melted chocolate is cooled, drizzle it into the butter/sugar mixture as it beats on medium speed; use a rubber spatula to get it all out. Add 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract. Beat the mixture thoroughly until combined, scraping the sides if necessary.

On medium speed, add the four eggs, one at a time, over a period of 20 minutes; leave about 5 minutes between each egg addition. Scrape sides of bowl halfway through this process. Pour filling into the pie crust.

Smooth out the pie filling and place pie in the refrigerator to chill for at least 5 hours (preferably longer).

The Superbowl has got me in the mood for dips. Both these recipes have been in my folder of "Recipes to Try" for a while now, so I was excited to actually make them.

The first is a Caramelized Onion Dip. Onions and shallots are sliced and sauteed for 30 minutes to get a nice brown caramelization. Mix up with everything white and creamy under the sun (mayo, sour cream and cream cheese), and you've got yourself a darn good dip. This dip has a kick too from the cayenne pepper in the recipe. It's not too spicy ... just a tad.

Caramelized Onion Dip

Courtesy of A Dash of Sass

Ingredients

2 large yellow onions

2 large shallots

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

3 tablespoons olive oil

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

6 ounces light cream cheese, softened to room temperature

2/3 cup reduced fat sour cream

2/3 cup light mayonnaise

Directions:

Cut the onions and shallots in quarters and slice into thin strips.

Heat a large saucepan over medium heat. Combine butter and olive oil in pan.

Add the onions, shallots, cayenne, salt and pepper. Saute for about 10 minutes, until softened. Reduce heat to medium-low and continue sauteing for another 30 minutes, stiring frequently, until the onions are browned and caramelized.

Remove onions from pan and let cool.

Place cream cheese, sour cream and mayonnaise in a large bowl. Using a electric mixer, beat until fully combined and smooth.

Add the onions. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Serve at room temperature with chips.

Happy birthday to two of our sales representatives at Creative Loafing!

In honor of their birthdays, I decided to bring out the big guns ... filled and frosted cupcakes that took me a good portion of my afternoon/evening to make. (Complicated assembly required.)

These Ice Cream Sundae Cupcakes don't really have any ice cream in them, but only resemble sundaes (sorry, you ice-cream-o-holics). But they just may be better than an ice cream sundae. The base is a chocolate cake, which is then cored and filled with chocolate ganache, piped with vanilla buttercream, and then topped with sprinkles and a cherry, oh yes, and more ganache.

The creamy chocolate center and the buttery, rich frosting made the birthday boy and girl, and co-workers, very, very, happy. According to some, these taste ridiculously fantastic. Really, how freaking cute are these? So cute I can almost overlook the hassle of making them...

After the chocolate cupcakes are baked and cooled, you'll need to dig out a core. I didn't have a round cookie cutter small enough to cut out the middles of the cupcakes, so I used an inverted circular piping tip instead and used the tip of a knife to pop the core out.

Once cored, you spoon in the ganache filling, which is just a melted mixture of cream, chocolate, and butter.

The buttercream frosting requires 5 minutes of whipping after each 1/2 cup addition of powdered sugar. Thank goodness for the KitchenAid stand mixer, because that adds up to a lot of whipping. To get the frosting to look like whipped cream, I used a round piping tip.

After you pipe the little white clouds of frosting on each, drizzle on more ganache sauce, add rainbow-colored sprinkles, and top with a stemmed maraschino cherry.