I love this pie.

LOVE it.

My family has been making this mocha fudge pie each holiday for years now.

Um, let's just overlook the fact that it contains alcohol and I have been making since I was in high school. La-di-da...

Moving on...

The recipe comes from Cooking Light and it isn't exactly light, but it's not calorie-laden like a cheesecake either. Each serving has 297 calories. The pie consists of three layers: a brownie crust, a creamy chocolate pudding mocha layer, and then a coffee whipped cream layer.

It's delicious. It really is. You'll be tempted to eat the filling layers as you go. Go ahead and lick the spatulas and bowls when you're done.

Mocha Fudge Pie

Ingredients:

1/3 cup hot water

4 teaspoons instant coffee granules, divided

1/2 (20.5-ounce) box light fudge brownie mix (about 2 cups)

2 teaspoons vanilla extract, divided

2 large egg whites

Cooking spray

3/4 cup 1% low-fat milk

3 tablespoons Kahlúa or other coffee-flavored liqueur, divided

1 (3.9-ounce) package chocolate-flavored instant pudding mix or 1 (1.4-ounce) package sugar-free chocolate-flavored instant pudding mix

3 cups frozen reduced-calorie whipped topping, thawed and divided

Chocolate curls or cocoa powder (optional)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 325°.

Combine hot water and 2 teaspoons coffee granules in a bowl; stir well. Add 2 cups brownie mix, 1 teaspoon vanilla, and egg whites; stir until well-blended. Pour mixture into a 9-inch pie plate coated with cooking spray. Bake at 325° for 22 minutes (brownie will be fudgy when tested with a wooden pick). Let cool completely on a wire rack.

Combine milk, 2 tablespoons Kahlúa, 1 teaspoon coffee granules, 1 teaspoon vanilla, and pudding mix in a bowl; beat at medium speed of a mixer 30 seconds. Gently fold in 1 1/2 cups whipped topping. Spoon pudding mixture into brownie crust; spread evenly.

Combine 1 tablespoon Kahlúa and 1 teaspoon coffee granules in a bowl; stir well. Gently fold in 1 1/2 cups whipped topping. Spread whipped topping mixture evenly over pudding mixture. Garnish with chocolate curls or cocoa powder, if desired. Serve immediately or store loosely covered in refrigerator.

Nutritional Information:

Calories: 297 (20% from fat)

Fat: 6.5g (sat 3g,mono 0.1g,poly 1.6g)

Protein: 4.9g

Carbohydrate: 51.6g

Fiber: 1.2g

Cholesterol: 1mg

Iron: 1.4mg

Sodium: 399mg

Calcium: 50mg

Happy retirement and birthday, Jan!

Creative Loafing's sales rep Jan Caldwell retired yesterday and her today is birthday. For such a grand occasion, a batch of cupcakes just wouldn't suffice. I needed to make something really special for her.

When I ran across a blog post online featuring a mile-high layered cake decorated with ribbons of frosting, I knew I had to try it.

For my cake, I made two layers of rich chocolate cake and then cut each in half to make 4 layers. For the frosting, I made a vanilla buttercream and tinted it a bright and fun pink. The ribboned look was created with a Wilton petal decorating tip (like this).

So, I practically gave myself carpal tunnel syndrome from piping all the frosting, but it was totally worth it.

Mix together crushed Oreos and a block of cream cheese and what do you get? Bite-sized truffle balls of amazing awesomeness.

According to a co-worker, "this truffle is the most delicious thing I've ever put in my mouth!"

Making them is a snap. Instructions are as follows:

1. Grind up an entire package (yes, three whole sleeves) of Oreos.

2. Mix in a block of cream cheese (softened).

(3. Add in a teaspoon of peppermint extract, if you so choose.)

4. Roll into balls, place on wax paper, and chill in the freezer for 10 minutes. *I used a scale to measure out each one and made each 15 grams

5. Dip balls in melted white chocolate (the Almond Bark variety works great)

Here I've dressed them up for the season. I added a couple drops of food coloring (which I do not recommend*) to the white chocolate to make the truffles into little pumpkins. The stems and the tendrils were made with toothpicks and curled green ribbon.

You can make these truffles for any holiday by getting creative with the decorations. Sprinkle on green and red nonpareils over the chocolate before it sets for Christmas truffles, or you can even use black icing to draw faces on white truffles to turn them into snowmen.

* It's probably not a good idea to add water-based food coloring like I did because it messed up the chocolate's consistency. I was only able to make a few orange truffles before the chocolate got down-right funky and hard to work with. I ended up trashing the orange chocolate and made the rest of the truffles plain. If you want to color your chocolate, get the oil-based food coloring. Yes, I'm a dumdum.

I've made another Pioneer Woman recipe and I've gained another pound from it. That's how it goes.

This time I made her apple dumplings. They were embarrassingly easy to make for being so good.

To make these puppies, you just wrap crescent roll dough around slices of apple, pour a mixture of melted butter and sugar over them, empty out some Mountain Dew from the can on top of that, sprinkle with cinnamon, and bake. And ta-da! You've got yourself a crowd-pleasing dessert.

With such little effort for a praise-worthy dessert, this recipe has definitely got me rethinking all my complicated dessert recipes. What's the point in laboring in the kitchen for hours if something semi-homemade does the job?

I'll definitely be making these again. Perhaps a cream cheese and berry filling would be pretty good too. Or maybe peaches ...

If you are making these ahead of time, after baking, pour out as much of the sauce that's in the pan (there will be quite a bit) and save it in a separate container. This will keep the dumplings from getting soggy. When you're ready to serve, warm the dumplings in the oven for a few minutes and warm the sauce in the microwave. Serve it all with scoop of vanilla bean ice cream.

If there is one thing I can't make in the kitchen, it's banana pudding. Every time I try, it turns out to be a failure.

You'd think I could master something as simple as banana pudding, which only requires one to layer a few simple ingredients — bananas, Nilla wafers, and pudding. Alas, I cannot.

Last time I made it with boxed banana-flavored pudding and it came out tasting like banana Runts candies. This time I tried making my own pudding, and it came out brown, grainy, and looking like apple sauce.

Though the pudding portion didn't look right after cooking on the stove top for 20 minutes, I forged ahead and assembled the banana pudding anyway – bananas, Nilla wafers and all. I believed something magical just might happen if I allowed the assembled banana pudding sit in the fridge.

Silly me. After a night in the refrigerator, the pudding was still a grainy mush with the texture of cooked squash. Arg. Just stamp me with a big, fat "FAIL" stamp. Nothing makes me angrier than a failed cooking project.

I got the recipe from the Charlotte Observer a few months ago. It's titled "The Best-Ever Banana Pudding." Mine turned out to be "The Worst-Ever Banana Pudding." What did I do wrong?