Over the past few months, Eric has been taking a Project Management Course to get his Project Management Professional (PMP) certification. It hasn’t been easy on him juggling work, the 3.5 hour daily commute, studying, and building the deck at the same time! We’ve been looking forward to the completion of the course so he doesn’t have to spend his evenings studying.
He was under a lot of pressure to pass because his work was paying for the course and no one wants to tell their boss and coworkers they failed the exam. We joked that he probably studied more for this exam than for all his exams combined in university!
Wednesday, Eric wrote the 400-question PMP exam and he passed with flying colours! Whew.
We celebrated, Blizzard style… :)
I loved reading through your comments on what Blizzard flavours I should make next! So many great ideas. For my 3rd version, I decided to make a spin-off of DQ’s Brownie Batter Blizzard:
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It boasts, ‘Double chocolate brownie batter blended with real fudge brownie pieces and creamy vanilla soft serve’
Yes please!
My previous two versions below:
Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Blizzard Peanut Butter Chocolate Crunch Blizzard
The first thing I did was whip up some double chocolate brownie dough balls in the food processor.
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Double Chocolate Brownie Dough Balls
Adapted from Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Balls.
Yield: 12 balls
Ingredients:
- 1/2 cup raw cashews
- 12 Medjool dates (1 cup packed & pitted)
- 2 tbsp cocoa powder
- 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 1 tbsp pure maple syrup
- 1/4 tsp kosher salt, or to taste
- 1/4 cup chocolate chips
- 1/4 cup shredded unsweet. coconut
- 1/4 cup chopped walnuts
1. In a food processor, add the cashews and process until a fine crumb. Be sure not to over process and release the oils too much.
2. Now add in the pitted dates and process until chunky. Add in the rest of the ingredients (except walnuts) and process until a dough forms. Stop to scrape down the sides of the bowl as necessary. Pulse in walnuts so they remain chunky. Add a bit more liquid sweetener if dough is too dry.
3. Form into balls and store in fridge or freezer.
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Double chocolaty.
Crunchy.
Nutty.
Chewy.
Sweet & salty.
What’s not to love?
Double Chocolate Brownie Dough ‘Blizzard’
- Banana Soft Serve or your favourite ice cream
- Cocoa powder & peanut butter, to taste
- Brownie dough balls (from above)
- Toasted coconut, for garnish
1. In a food processor, process your desired amount of frozen bananas until a creamy soft serve forms. We use 3 large bananas for 2 people. OR, simply grab your favourite ice cream and scoop it into the processor.
2. Add cocoa powder and peanut butter, to taste and process until combined.
3. Crumble 2-3 brownie dough balls into the processor and pulse until just combined.
4. Scoop into bowls or glass and crumble another ball on top with toasted coconut, for garnish. Enjoy on a hot summer day!
I think this flavour would work better without banana soft serve. The banana was just a bit too pronounced in this combo. Next time, I might use Chocolate Coconut Bliss and do without the banana flavour coming through.
Otherwise it was fantastic!
I had to be quick with the photoshoot under the hot sun because I was making a huge mess, as usual!
Though, we clean up pretty well. ;)
Have a great Friday!
Congrats to your hubby! And what a great way to celebrate. These look amazing and I am sure better that dairy queen for sure :)
These look amazing! I love the glasses that you served them in, so cute! You are so creative and have such wonderful ideas!
Congrats to Eric for furthering his education and credentials and passing with flying colors!
And congrats to you for making the world a better place by creating Double Chocolate Brownie Dough Balls. Wow. Angela they look awesome!
I grew up eating DQ Blizzards and Heath Bar was my fave. But after seeing this, I dont miss Heath Bar blizzards for a second. I just need to make this….omg it looks soooo good!
Oh my, you’ve done it again! I think I might eat all the dough balls before I have a chance to get them into the blizzard!!
PS. Congrats Eric!! That’s great that he passed!
YUM! What a great post to read on a Friday morning. I will now bribe myself with the promise of one of these if I get everything done on my to-do list today!
That’s one question I had about these blizzards: Does the banana flavor come through a lot? For example, did the peanut butter chocolate crunch blizzard have a pronounced banana flavor??
I just have to ask, how the heck to do eat your overflowing goodies without making a sticky mess?? :)
Angela you are an evil genius. (Minus the evil part!) :) I made a batch of your original cookie dough while waiting for my bananas to get ripe enough to freeze and I think I’m going to be out of dough before the bananas are ready to eat!
I have two ideas/suggestions. The first is that the cookie dough balls would make AMAZING cookies for ice cream sandwhiches if you flattened them out. I think you might need to fill them with coconut bliss ice cream rather than banana soft serve to get the proper texture, but I think it could be amazing. :) I’ll try it out with my next batch.
The second idea come from the fact that I found almond meal at Trader Joes- I’d love to figure out how to make an almond joy cookie ball- maybe almond meal, shredded coconut, and almond chunks with choc chips…. Maybe you could do that for your next blizzard flavor! :)
MMm great ideas :)
Congrats to Eric, I have actually been considering taking some project management courses to take a step forward in my career. Hopefully becoming a pmp will open some door for him.
I seriously lived off of the brownie blizzards in college – my roomie and I had struck the perfect deal; she would buy, I would go pick them up. Such a fun tradition, I miss it…but I don’t miss the awful feeling after eating the huge thing! I’m thinking this would leave me feeling way better!
Tell Eric congrats, by the way!
That sounds so good!!!! I have yet to try banana soft serve–think it will be on my weekend agenda!
That’s it. I’m making this for sure this weekend!
They look so good! I’ve got to get a food processor!
You kill me.
I need to move in with you – Eric and Sketchy won’t mind will they?? ;)
I want to make more dough balls! They are perfect little bites of energy before a run :)
Congrats to Eric on the PMP! That’s a valuable thing to have, for sure.
Since it’s my birthday, will you bring me one of those blizzards?! :)
Congrats to Eric! What a lot of work that was —and a 3.5 hour commute – oh my! That alone would be enough to push me over the edge!
I made the banana soft serve – came out good – but I agree – we do not always want the banana flavor. I wish there was a way to do vanilla. Do you know if you can make vanilla ice cream with almond milk? I thought of trying that but figured it would be on the market if it really worked!
Where do you get the dates? (regular grocery store or specialty/dry shelf or produce?) I really want to try them as I see them in a few of your recipes. I actually think they had them for us at a hotel we went to last weekend – they gave us a few plates of snacks in our room and I tried these things – very sweet! Deeeelicious :-)
I bet you could freeze almond milk into cubes and then process into “ice cream”. Chocolate almond milk or other non dairy milk frozen and then processed would be awesome too!
I’ve seen recipes around the blog world that use a combination of soy creamer and almond milk to make some delicious-looking vegan ice creams. Search “almond milk ice cream” and something is bound to come up!
mm that sounds good, I havent tried it myself!
I buy my dates in bulk from Ontario Natural Food Coop.
Thanks for the ideas – I will search it and try. I will have to make a trip to the coop near here (It is phenomenal but 1.5 hrs away) – I am sure they have the dates too.
Chocolate-Covered Katie has the easiest, simplest recipe I’ve found for vanilla ice cream, but I’m not sure about etiquette when it comes to linking to other blogs on somebody else’s blog (if you see what I mean! Just trying to do the right thing!), so I can only suggest you Google “chocolate covered katie voluminous ice cream” – it should be the first link to come up :)
I will ck it out – thanks!
Got the dates today :-)
Yay for Eric! That’s the hardest thing about shooting outdoors in the summer…everything melts! I’d love this with chocolate coconut bliss. Omg that’d be AMAZE.
Oh my goodness does this look amazing! Love the melty effect.
These look AMAZING. I must make these! And congratulations to Eric!