Chocolate Dessert Waffles

What a summer it's been! I spent the first four weeks of my summer working at Hume Lake Christian Camps. I went to Hume Lake as a camper in high school and it was always the highlight of my summer. It was a special place where God taught me so much about his character and love for us. Because it was such a life changing experience for me, I wanted to give back and help to create similar experiences for other students. Hume Lake sits right in the Sequoia National Forest so it's complete with forests, a lake, and the ever present Christmas tree smell. I worked at Hume San Diego which is the camp's off campus site. We set up on Point Loma Nazarene University's campus which has a constant view of the ocean and the sound of waves crashing on the cliffs. Beach or Mountains? Now that's a hard choice to make.

Last year, I worked as activities and recreation staff. We would run organized rec games and take students to the beach to surf, bike, kayak and swim. This year, I'm a lead counselor. Our primary function is to be a resource for the youth pastors and counselors. We want to take care of all the logistics so that they can be there for their students. It's kinda like being an RA on a floor of campers. It's so great to go around and talk with the students about what God has been teaching them. It brings me back to when I was there age and trying to figure out what it means to seek after God and his will in my life. I really enjoy being a lead and developing these friendships with churches and students. Having beach duty isn't so bad either.

Our western-style theme, All In, takes a look at the lives of David and Saul. It examines what it means to be all in for Christ and follow after God's heart, regardless of the circumstances. Saul often made decisions on his own without seeking God's help. He was looking victory, glory and approval from others which resulted in failure, pride, and jealousy. He was rejected as king because he did not follow after God's will. Conversely, David despite his flaws and sins went to God for advice and wisdom; he was a man after God's own heart. Despite the odds, he knew that God had to be trusted no matter the circumstance. Our theme verse is from Psalm 40.8 "I desire to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart." Through this theme, students, counselors and staff alike will learn to seek after Christ, emulate his character and strive to follow after God's own heart.


It was such a life giving and filling experience for me. I enjoyed getting to know students and youth pastors, praying with them and finding out how their ministries are going. I loved our staff which became a family for four short weeks. Most importantly, God taught me so much about Himself and I gained a better relationship with Him over the four weeks.

So how does this relate to chocolate dessert waffles? It doesn't. However, Christ and seeing Him transform lives (including my own) is the most important things to me. How can I not share what God did this summer at Hume SD? Every single person in this world has the shared desire to be filled. Food (like chocolate waffles) satisfies the physical needs of hunger for a time. That's why we keep eating and eating and eating. But Christ and His love over-fills the empty place in our human hearts for an eternity. We can be ever learning about his character and trying to be more like Him in our everyday lives.

The Ingredients
2 cups AP flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup cocoa powder
2 cups milk
6 tablespoons melted butter
2 tablespoons sugar
1.5 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 eggs, separated


The Method
In a mixing bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients: flour, baking powder, salt, and cocoa powder.

In another bowl or pyrex, whisk together the wet ingredients: 2 cups milk, melted butter, egg yolks, vanilla extract and sugar.

Am I missing something but isn't sugar dry? Technically yeah it's dry but in baking sugar is mixed with the wet ingredients so that it will dissolve faster.

Mix the wet into the dry. This is the general rule of thumb because the heavier "wet ingredients" will want go to the bottom and the lighter "dry ingredients" will want to go to
the top. Mixing the wet into the dry will help it to combine faster.

In yet another bowl, whisk the egg whites until they reach medium peaks.

To test for medium peaks, dip the whisk into the egg whites and hold it up. There should be a peak in which the top part of the peak curves down. Stiff peaks means the peak will stick straight up.
Using a spatula, fold in one third of the egg whites making the batter lighter. Incorporating the egg whites in two steps will decrease the amount of bubbles popped - lighter, fluffier waffles.

Then once those are incorportated, fold in the remaining two thirds.

Heat up your waffle iron, spray or wipe with oil so that it won't stick and laddle in some batter. When the waffle is done, take it out and dress it up with french vanilla ice cream and strawberries. The hot fluffy waffle contrasts the cold creamy ice cream.

Dessert of champions.

Recipe by Spencer Huey

Lime Bars

The other day our friends, Sholeh and Elena came over to make some dessert and to hang out. Whenever we hang out together, there is usually constant laughter about the most random things. They are amazing people.

Sholeh is not only a great friend but also an amazing photographer. She took all the pictures so I could concentrate on dessert, thanks Sho. Elena said she was "so into citrusy sweets" and the first thing that came to my mind was lemon bars. Since we had one lemon and twenty limes, I decided to make lime bars instead. In my opinion, limes are the zestier cousin of lemons, I think they pack more of a punch.

When I think of lemons, classic American foods like lemonade, lemon meringue pie, and the like come to mind. However limes in my mind become the condiment to savory ethnic foods like carne asada street tacos, and pho. There's nothing wrong with that but besides key lime pie and lime jello, was there any other desserts that put limes at the forefront? I wanted to change that and thus we made lime bars.

The Ingredients
For the crust:
2 cups AP flour
3/4 cup powdered sugar
2 sticks of butter, melted
pinch of salt
For the filling:
6 eggs
1 3/4 cups sugar
1/3 cup AP flour
1 cup lime juice (about 10-12 limes)
zest of two limes
pinch of salt


The Method
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl combine all the crust ingredients: flour, powdered sugar, butter and salt. Mix with your favorite spatula to combine.

Empty the crust dough into a greased 9 x 13 inch pan. Using your fingers, press the dough down to form an even layer.

Place in the oven and bake for 15-17 minutes until the crust just starts to brown on the edges.

Meanwhile, whisk the custard filling ingredients together in a bowl: eggs, sugar, flour, lime juice, lime zest, and salt.

The lime zest has the essential oils of the lime and this will give your final bars two dimensions of lime flavor. The salt helps to bring out the lime flavor and cuts the strong acid of the juice. This microplane is one of my favorite tools in my kitchen. Besides zesting, it can grate fine ribbons of cheese, grate spices like nutmeg, mince garlic and ginger and a ton of other things that I can't think of right now...invest in one, you'll be happy you did.

One cup of juice? That's a whole lot! I know, I know. Trust me though it will yield a much more flavorful bar than those squares of yellow sugar found elsewhere.

Add the juice to the rest of the ingredients and let's continue. I'm hungry.

By the time the filling mixture is done, the crust should just becoming out of the oven. Carefully pour the custard filling over the hot crust and quickly return to the oven for another 20-22 minutes until the custard is set. No wobbles.

Now is the time to practice the fruit of the Spirit called patience. Let the lime bars cool for about 3o minutes. This allows the custard to set and will make cutting much easier, I promise.

Your patience will be rewarded. Cut into squares with a knife and dust with powdered sugar - its traditional.

The huge problem I have with lemon bars is that that are usually way to sweet with little lemon flavor. This recipe cuts the sugar and ups the lime. This recipe can easily be made into lemon bars. Just replace the lime juice with lemon juice (about 5 lemons or so) and use the zest of one lemon. I hope that you enjoy these lime or lemon bars as much as Elena and Sholeh did. These lime bars require only a few ingredients, I bet you have all of them right now. They super simple to make and are always a crowd pleaser.

Recipe by Spencer Huey

Red Velvet Truffles

Let me introduce to you my friend, Chelsea.

First, she is one of my best friends and I am so blessed to have her in my life. She is one of the most godly people I know; she strives to put Christ first in all she does. Second, she LOVES chocolate. The most important things to her in life are "God, then chocolate, then friends and family"; her words not mine. I would say that she is on par with my roommate, Kevin, who also share this passion for the stuff. One of my friends, Anna, told me about red velvet truffles and so we decided to make them. They are really easy to make and satisfied her craving for chocolate...well at least for the next hour.

The Ingredients

1 red velvet cake

8 oz. block of cream cheese

1/4 cup butter (half a stick)

1 cup powdered sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1lb semisweet chocolate

4 tablespoons milk

The Method

I know, I know. I hate processed food, too. I confess that I used a boxed cake mix. Honestly, I didn't want to make a red velvet from scratch only to smash the whole thing up. It saved a lot of time by using the box but feel free to make your own.

Let the cake cool until room temperature. With a fork, crumb the cake into, well, crumbs.

Next, make the cream cheese frosting which will act as the binder for the cake crumbs. Place the butter and cream cheese in another bowl. Use a mixer to cream the ingredients together. Add the powdered sugar and vanilla and mix on low speed, otherwise your whole kitchen will have a layer of sweet snow all over it.

Mix the frosting in with the cake crumbs until it forms a dough.

Form golf ball sized balls and place them on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Chill them in the freezer for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, pour the chocolate and milk together in a bowl and melt it in a double boiler. The milk will prevent the chocolate from seizing up and getting grainy. Pull the red velvet truffles out of the freezer and dip them in the chocolate.

Let them sit in the fridge for about 10 minutes to allow the chocolate to harden.

Make sure you have a tall glass of milk on hand when you are ready to consume them.

This will make around 2.5 dozen red velvet truffles.

Amaretto Pear Crisp

There is something satisfying about slightly sweet fruit baked with a crunchy, golden brown topping on it. The only thing to make it better is a generous scoop of vanilla bean ice cream. This recipe is really easy. It is based off of Auntie Noreen's apple crisp recipe.

The Ingredients
4 cups of peel, sliced pears (about 4-5 pears)
3 tablespoons of Amaretto
.5 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup AP flour
3/4 cup sugar
6 tablespoons butter

The Method
In a mixing bowl, mix together the pears, and amaretto.
Throw the flour, sugar, salt, and sliced butter into the food processor. Pulse until the mix resembles damp sand. A pastry cutter can be used too; it will take longer though.
Butter a 10x6 pan, pour in the apples and sprinkle on the crumb mixture. Bake for 40-45 minutes at 350, or until golden brown. Let it cool for about 10 minutes to avoid a scalding mouthful. Scoop a hefty scoop of ice cream on top and enjoy!

Coconut Sticky Rice with Fresh Berries

Rice...for dessert? For those of you who have not tried this Thai dessert, I can understand that this may seem a little weird. It's good, I promise. The match of the sweet, creamy yet slightly salty rice pairs perfectly with the sweetness of seasonal fruit. I usually prefer mangoes with the sticky rice, and it is indeed more traditional. Sadly, the mangoes were not-so-great so I opted with fresh strawberries and blackberries instead.

The Ingredients
2 cups of Thai sweet rice
3 cups water
1 can of coconut milk (not lite)
3/4 cup white sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
Strawberries
Blackberries
sesame seeds

The Method
The traditional way of preparing Thai sweet rice is to soak it for hours and then steam it in a special basket. I have found that if you put the rice with the water in a rice cooker, it turns out pretty well. However, it's important to let it soak for at least 20 minutes and then press the cook button.
Meanwhile, put a small saucepan on medium heat. Pour in the coconut milk, sugar and salt. Take the cooked rice and pour it into a large mixing bowl. With a rubber spatula, fold the rice to fluff it. Pour in the coconut milk mixture. It will look pretty soupy at first but let it set covered for about 10 minutes and the rice should adsorb it all. Fluff once more and plate a small mound and sprinkle it with the fresh berries and sesame seeds.
This serves around 6-8 hungry college students craving this Thai dessert.