Save Money, Improve Your Rental Kitchen, Test $15 Tomatoes, Clean Your Oven, Bake A Chocolate Cake Top posts for February 9-15, 2009

All of the above and more, in last week's most popular posts. We have mouthwatering galleries of caramel and chocolate desserts, a frilly pink party table for Valentine's, a perplexing story about oven-cleaning, and plenty of recipes. Take a look at the most popular posts last week. Did you miss any of them?

Posts pictured above are in bold below.

• Ten Kitchen Improvements for Renters

• How to Save Money by Shopping at Whole Foods

• How To Paint a Kitchen: Kendra's February Jumpstart Project 2009

• How To Create a Wall of Spoon Hooks: Bojo's February Jumpstart Project 2009

• Look! Sexy Rice Cooker Design

• Soup of the Day: Rustic Winter Stew

• Is a $15 Can of Tomatoes Really Worth It?

• Recipe: Sticky Toffee Cakelets

• How To Prettify (and Kittify) an Ugly Dishwasher Panel: Annie's February Jumpstart Project 2009

• Look! Pink Party for Valentine's Day

• Southeast Asian Noodle Soups in The New York Times

• Sweet and Gooey Caramel Desserts for Valentine's Day

• Recipe Review: Weight-Watchers Glazed Pear Muffins

• Gallery: Chocolate Desserts for Valentine's Day

• Our Adventures in Oven Cleaning

Previous Hot Posts: Oreo Cake, Great Cheese Fondue, Eating While Traveling, Fakeout Food, and Pineapple Flowers: Top posts for February 2-8, 2009

Comments (2)

What brand of cocoa powder gets those brownies so dark? (And that beet cake. And the Oreo cake...) I've never been able to get my baked goods looking that rich.

I've only ever tried Hershey's (the regular, not the Special Dark...I'm not a big fan of the flavor of Hershey's) and Ghirardelli.

I think the Irish Coffee Brownies have coffee and chocolate shavings to darken them. I used Hershey's Special Dark in the beet and Oreo cakes; I'm not usually a fan of Hershey's either, but I really like the Special Dark.

The dark color comes from cocoa that has been treated with alkaline, which is what happens in the Dutch process. So a Dutch processed cocoa will usually give a darker color/flavor.

There's more on the differences in cocoa here:
Pantry Basics: What Is Dutch Process Cocoa?