Showing posts with label brownies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label brownies. Show all posts

Peanut Butter Cup Brownie Bites - it's National Peanut Butter Day!

7:54 AM | Labels: , , , ,


Did you know that today is National Peanut Butter Day? Now that you do, are you surprised that I’m just about bouncing out of my chair to tell you about it? I was talking to L and he commented that it might as well just be called Jess Day, with the amount of peanut butter I consume on a daily basis. I can’t really argue there, though I’d imagine I’m not alone in that boat.

One of my most recent peanut butter creations (the way I worded that made it sound like I developed the recipe – I absolutely did not) was a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup Brownie Bite, which is exactly how it sounds – a miniature peanut butter cup baked in the center of a small brownie. Yeah, it’s also as delicious as it sounds. In this dessert you get the quintessential Reese’s flavor surrounded by a fudgy brownie. I’m pretty sure I wound up eating my weight in them on New Year’s Eve – I’ve already explained how I’m pretty bad at controlling my portions with miniaturized desserts – so I might prefer to next time either make a sheet of brownies studded with the cups and cut my own slice, or put a whole reese’s in a brownie batter-filled jumbo muffin pan (now that sounds dangerous!). I just can’t get over how amazing these brownie bites are – on their own, with vanilla ice cream, really any way at all.

I used whole wheat flour and the stevia MoreFiber blend instead of the white flour and sugar, and for once no one could detect the stevia at all. I think it’s because there was still a decent amount of brown sugar, plus the refined sweetness of the actual peanut butter cups. I figure that Stevia might just need to be an ingredient you use to partially replace something rather than swapping it out completely. It might be a little overwhelming on its own. The only other change I made was to try to decorate the tops with rainbow sprinkles, only to realize that – newsflash! – basically all sprinkles (not the granulated ones, just the jimmy-like ones for ice cream sundaes and whatnot) are made with hydrogenated oils. Go figure. So I got a little bummed, scraped my pretty decorations off, and lamented at how plain the brownie bites wind up looking without any garnish. If I were you, I’d decorate them somehow – some mini m&ms, chopped peanuts, mini chocolate chips, a drizzle of brightly colored royal icing….just something to perk them up a bit. Your taste buds won’t give a hoot, but it’ll make your display look a little more festive. 



One Year Ago: Chickpea Pasta Casserole
Peanut Butter in the Past (blog): Peanut Butter Cookies, Peanut Butter-M&M S’mores, Peanut Butter & Honey Dog Treats, Peanut Ginger Tofu Salad, Thai Chicken Salad  
Peanut Butter in the Past (Facebook): Homemade Peanut Butter “Cheerios,” PB&J Yogurt,  PB&J Oat Pancake, Peanut Butter-Banana Crunch,  Peanut Butter-Banana Smoothie, Peanut Butter Stuffed Banana Bread French Toast,

Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup Brownie Bites, adapted from Mom’s Cooking Club
Yield: 40 brownie bites
(printable recipe)

The Ingredients
¾ cup salted butter, melted
¾ cup Stevia MoreFiber Baking Blend1
¾ cup light brown sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 eggs
¾ cup whole wheat flour
½ cup cocoa powder
40 miniature Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups

The Method
Preheat the oven to 350° Fahrenheit and generously spray 4 mini cupcake pans with nonstick spray.2

Stir together the butter, both sugars, and vanilla in a medium mixing bowl. One at a time, beat in the eggs, then mix in the flour and cocoa powder until just combined. Fill each cupcake well approximately halfway with the batter and place one peanut butter cup in the center of each, press down until it is almost level with the batter. Bake the brownie bites for 15-18 minutes, and cool in the pan for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely (or, you know…not).

Notes:
1Or ¾ cup granulated sugar.
2These were pretty finicky and I found that the amount that I sprayed wasn’t enough to prevent some from falling to pieces when I tried to remove them. I would say either try spraying them even more thoroughly, or just throw in the towel and use liners. Not that broken peanut butter cup brownie bites are a sin, but they certainly don’t look very presentable.





 


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Posted by toni

Blondie Brownie Candy Pie - a mouthful anyway you slice it!

5:57 PM | Labels: , , , ,



Did you know that I have never posted a pie recipe on here before? I have shared cookies, layer cakes, sweet breads, fruit crisps, cupcakes, pastries, and practically every other kind of coma-inducing sugar bomb dessert ever invented. I have even posted one or two savory pies. But not once has a sweet blend of sugar, fruit and/or creamy confection ensconced in a buttery, flaky shell baked to golden-brown perfection made it onto this page. What is, perhaps, even more tragic is the reason that I haven’t shared a recipe for a dessert pie with you is not because I tried a recipe and it flopped, or I forgot to take a picture, or a million and a half other facets of life stepped in and forbade it; no, I haven’t written about pie before because, apparently, I had never made one.

Unless you count the apple pie I made with a friend from the Pillsbury refrigerated crusts back in high school in honor of Pi day.

For the sake of a good story, let’s not.

As it turns out, I think I’ll be attempting a classic pumpkin pie in honor of the big Turkey Day next week, but when I realized this epic culinary oversight on my part, I couldn’t even wait that long to right it. Luckily, I didn’t have to drop everything I was doing and whip up an impromptu dessert, because it just so happens that last week I did, in fact, bake a pie. Kind of. I say kind of because this wasn’t really a pie so much as it was a dessert baked in a pie dish, giving it the iconic shape without really any other overlapping characteristic. Still, pie is in the name, and so I have for you today Floptimism’s Very First Pie.

Does it surprise you that my first pie is actually called a Blondie Brownie Candy Pie, and that it is actually a layer of buttery blondie batter scattered with leftover Halloween candy doused in brownie batter iced with warmed chocolate chips and garnished with miniature m&m’s? No, I didn’t think it would. The chocoholic in me really is making up for all the lost time from when I was a little kid and eschewed all things chocolate unless preceded with the word “white.” I even ate white chocolate peanut butter cups. Yeah, they make them.

But anyway, back to this pie. Blondie. Brownie. Thing. It’s amazing. I mean, really, really good. My stumbling upon the recipe was even more fortuitous than my choosing to bake it just one week before realizing the sad truth of my lack of pie baking experiences. I was trying to find recipes that would use my leftover Halloween candy (how many other people grossly overestimated the amount of trick or treaters they would get? How many other people secretly intentionally did so to have an excuse to have leftovers for yourself? It’s ok, me too.), and I found this bad boy when I wasn’t even sitting down to conduct a formal search. It was just there, waiting for me, saying, “I know that I’m exactly what you’re looking for. You have no excuse.” And so I did the only thing someone in my position could do, really – I baked!

A few notes – I didn’t cut up the butter but as it goes into a pot to be melted, I don’t think that’s much of a problem. I used white whole wheat flour and it did not stop the boys in L’s dorm from devouring it (ok, I absolutely played a heavy hand in that too; I can’t pin it all on the male stomach being a bottomless pit). The blondie batter didn’t fully firm up in the freezer in 10 minutes as the recipe said, so after 12 or 13 I essentially threw in the towel and worked with it, anyway. It wasn’t too difficult. I melted the chocolate chips in the microwave on half power at 30 second intervals , though I tend to encourage avoiding microwaves whenever possible so a double boiler system on the stove would work wonderfully, too. Instead of the snickers bars that the original recipe called for (darn you hydrogenated oils!), I used what I had – a combination of Crunch and Krackle fun bars. I’m sure the pie wound up being less decadent in the end because of that change, but really, when you have something called a “Blondie Brownie Candy Pie” do you need the candy in it to be the most ridiculous thing in the world? It was plenty rich, and I really liked the crunch that the nougat gave. Just use whatever leftover candy you have on hand. You can’t go wrong.

I was worried that I had over-baked it, since I checked after 25 minutes and my toothpick was already clean as a whistle. Still, the pie turned out to be really soft and not overdone at all, so don’t get too concerned if you find the same thing happens to you (but if I were you, I’d check it a little earlier – maybe around 22 minutes – just to be sure). The blondie part on its own was a little bland and certainly won’t be my go-to stand alone blondie recipe, but taken with the rest of the dessert, I just about died and went to heaven. Add a little scoop of Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey ice cream or pour a shot of Godiva white chocolate liqueur on top, and you’ll have me wrapped around your little finger. It was…phenomenal. And although I can’t really see myself running out and buying candy to use in this recipe again and again, it’s absolutely something I will be coming back to when I find myself with a bowl of leftover candy too big for even me to eat all of it on its own…and on my own. 



Blondie Brownie Candy Pie, adapted from Kitchen Daily
Yield: 1 pie (6-8 generous servings)
(printable recipe)

The Ingredients
½ cup (1 stick) butter
½ cup light brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup white whole wheat flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
1 cup (6 ounces) semisweet chocolate chips
1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder
13 fun-size candy bars
additional candy, nuts, sprinkles, etc. for garnish1

The Method
Grease a 9-inch glass pie plate with cooking spray and set aside.

Melt the butter and brown sugar together over medium heat, bringing the mixture to a bubble. Remove from the heat to cool for 10 minutes.

Add 1 egg and the vanilla to the pan and, using a non-metal utensil, mix well. Stir in the flour and baking powder until the batter smooths out. Measure out ¾ cup of the batter and scrape it onto the pie plate without spreading it out. Place in the freezer for 10-15 minutes, until firm.

Just before the reserved batter is ready to come out of the freezer, preheat the oven to 350° and melt ½ cup of the chocolate chips. Add the melted chips, remaining egg, and cocoa powder into the batter that was not placed in the freezer. Set aside.

Once the freezer batter is firm, press it into an even layer across the entire plate and halfway up the sides. It’s ok if the layer is extremely thin; as long as no bits of glass show through, it’s enough. Top with your candy bars of choice, and then pour the brownie batter over all of it. Smooth out with a spatula before placing in the oven to bake 24-27 minutes, or until a toothpick or cake tester comes out with moist crumbs from the center.

Remove from the oven, sprinkle with the remaining chocolate chips, and let it sit for 5 minutes, or until the chocolate chips have softened to a spreadable consistency. Spread the melted chocolate over the pie and top with any desired garnishes. Allow the pie to cool completely before slicing.

Notes:
1I used 2 fun-size packs of m&ms for the garnish and liked the added color, but feel free to be creative with your pie!

I should probably divulge how I became aware of the fact that I had yet to post a recipe about pies. Well, it all came about when I saw a giveaway that involved sharing a pie recipe. Naturally, I went back into my archives to find one, and was shocked and amazed to realize that there wasn’t a single sweet dessert pie in sight! I still wanted to join in on the fun, and with this beauty of a recipe in my to-share file, I knew it had to make it onto these pages over the next week or so. So, here it is, and there you have it!  

Come join me at Love the Pie with TidyMom,  sponsored by Cherokee USA, Le Creuset, Wilton, Bags by Bloom and  Harvard Common Press - either check some of the other wonderful pie recipes people are sharing – or, if you’re so inclined, share one too!

 







 


















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Posted by toni

Banana Fudge Brownies (low-fat, but sh! don't tell) and a Blogger's Dilemma

4:37 PM | Labels: , ,


Sit down, pull up a chair, and grab one of these deceptively healthy Banana Fudge Brownies. Take a bite and join me for a little Thursday evening edition of Floptimism: The Soapbox Edition. The topic of tonight's conversation? Google's new Recipe Search Tool, and the implications it has for the everyday, small-time blogger.

The early days of Floptimism consisted of a lot of lonely ramblings, a chronicle of my cooking adventures for little more than posterity's (and my own finicky memory's) sake. I had lofty dreams of becoming as revered as Smitten Kitchen or Annie's Eats, with my little blog's renown and my own skills in the kitchen maturing together. Over time, though, I settled into a more modest complacency. I knew that I was the only person who read my entries, and it was in that moment of that realization, that coming-to-terms-with-the-facts, that I resolved to keep on keeping on. I enjoyed this blog, and it sure beat loose-leaf papers all over the kitchen full of scattered notes and marked-up recipes. I began this with the hope of gaining readers, but that wasn't my sole aim. A failure to garner a swift audience was not going to collapse my project altogether.

Then, over time, something happened - people started to pay attention. My pictures improved, I started updating more frequently than once every 3 months, and I learned a few of the more easily adapted ins and outs of the blogosphere. One day, I even got my first follower, and cannot tell you how ecstatic I was over that. I still get a little giddy when I spot a new follower has flattered me by hopping on this small and cozy Floptimism bandwagon. I'm certainly no Deb or Annie, and I have my doubts that I will ever reach their level of success, but I now have a fairly steady flow of traffic and a handful of readers who make my day every time I see they've stopped by.

Today I read an article on a new addition to the World Wide Web of which I was previously unaware. Google is, apparently, revamping their search prowess by adding a recipe feature. Any time you go to google and type in something that it perceives to be a recipe search, it will provide you with a fancy side tab of refinement options. With this tool, you can search for recipes by ingredients, cooking time, calorie information, reviews - you name it. That sounds great, right? Maybe not for bloggers. Basically, in Google's Plan to Take Over the World, you need to encode all of your entries as a food blogger to be compatible with Google's new system. The coding, like most HTML/web jargon, is daunting to say the least, and for any non-programmer attempting to manually bring their recipes up to snuff, requires an immense amount of work just for the input of several ingredients, much less a full recipe or all of those archived ones we have from posts past.

What this means is that once this "improvement" to Google is implemented, small-time food bloggers will have to choose between taking the time to change their posts to fit Google's cookie-cutter frame work, or losing otherwise-prime spots on I would say The Premier Search. Now, if people just Google Search, our entries will still show up, but as soon as they opt to switch into the new refined system, we will be trumped by the big, professional recipe sites and the more successful blogs who can hire people to translate their entries for them.

When I read this, I wasn't sure what to do. Clearly, I do not have time to efficiently transfer all of my archives, and it already takes me a good half-hour to write and format the simple entries I produce now. It wasn't realistic to say I would take the plunge with Google, at least at this point when Blogger doesn't have a way of supporting the new search; but at the same time, I struggled with the thought that Floptimism would, once again, disappear into the vastness of the internet. A lot of my site hits come from google - not all, but a lot.

I will not be making the switch. I started this blog with just one reader - myself - and I firmly believe that the benefits I receive and enjoy as a result of this creative, semi-documentary outlet will not be diminished, even if I never attract a single new reader. I will not stop growing as a cook; I will not stop loving sharing my stories with you and reading the stories that you put out, either via your own entries or your wonderful comments. The glamor of becoming respected and well-known in the world of Food Blogging is, of course, tempting, but I don't even know if I could handle - or would want to handle - the responsibility of such a title, even if I were to ever achieve it. It's a fantasy, a day dream - but this, right here, is a reality. I have a small group of fairly loyal readers, and I have family members who make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside when they have nice words to say about my entries. And I still have myself - this was created as a space for me to document my journey through learning to cook and bake better, and no fluctuation in site traffic can change that. (How's that for a sappy, borderline-Halmark statement, huh?)

I'm only disappointed that the world seems to be moving toward one-dimensionality, where codes and formats are the air we breathe. As a life-long perfectionist, even I have come to believe that just because an improvement can be made, does not mean that it should be made. I'm sure that this new recipe search will take a lot of the guess work out of desperate Google searches for a last minute recipe, and will be the saving grace to the person who just found out that their In-Laws will be arriving in 10 minutes, and the soup thawing in the fridge is no longer a viable dinner option. But cooking doesn't fit into an HTML code, and I have a very strong feeling that the general public is about to lose touch with some of the truly beautiful recipes out there.

What was that? Brownies? I mentioned something about brownies, and after reading this entire novel of my thoughts you want some kind of reward? Well, alright, if you insist...

You bite into these and taste banana, so don't be caught off-guard. It was an attempt at healthifying a regular brownie recipe for a Brownie Bake-Off on campus, but when the banana flavor came through so strongly, I threw in the towel and added Banana to the name, feigning intention from the start. They are whole wheat, reduced-fat brownies, but don't get hung up on that - more than that, they are fudgy with a light banana flavor, and if you somehow managed to stick a peanut butter swirl into them you may even be able to woo the titans at Google to give your blog entries number one status on all of their searches. You'd certainly be able to woo me.

Banana Fudge Brownies, adapted from Cooking During Stolen Moments
Yield: Approx. 15
(printable recipe)

The Ingredients
1 cup sugar
3 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup + 1 tablespoon banana*
2 cups chocolate chips
3 eggs
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon baking soda

The Method
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and grease a 9x13 inch baking dish. Place the sugar and butter in a small sauce pan over medium heat, allowing butter to melt while stirring often. Add the banana whisk vigorously to get as many lumps out as possible (but don't get too fanatical!). Remove the pan from the heat and stir in 1 1/2 cups of the chocolate chips until they melt into the mixture. Set aside to cool to room temperature.

Lightly beat the eggs in a small-medium mixing bowl, then add a few tablespoons of the chocolate mixture for tempering. Pour the remainder of the chocolate into the eggs and mix well. Finally, stir in the flour, vanilla, and baking soda until fully incorporated.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 18-22 minutes. Remove from the oven when done and immediately top with the remaining 1/2 cup of chocolate chips, pressing them lightly into the top of the brownies. Cool completely in the refrigerator (even though every ounce of my Food Safety knowledge screams against this).

Notes:
*For this recipe, I encourage you to use a previously frozen, thawed banana, not just an overripe one that you mash fresh. This gives you a much more liquidy, malleable banana.

p.s. during this particular brownie-bake off, I encountered The Ultimate Brownie - it was thick, chocolatey, decadent, and so fudgy you had to wonder if it's even been cooked all the way through...even if you get a corner piece. I found what I have been searching for, for so long. Imagine my euphoria, considering one of my good friends on campus was the one who baked them! I immediately sent her a text message: "I just died and went to heaven eating one of your brownies." I asked her for the recipe. Flattered though she was, this was her response: "I don't know! I just did a random search online and chose one." Really? Really? I spend time combing through the endless brownie recipes online, only trying the ones that claim to be The Best of the Best, and she picks some recipe at random and hits the jack pot? And then doesn't save the recipe? Alas, my search for the Holy Grail of Brownies continues...

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Posted by toni

Decadently Bittersweet Cake Brownies

2:51 PM | Labels: , ,


As much as my fingers are itching to type novels about all of the more savory dishes I've been enjoying over the past several months, and as sick as many of you probably are of sweets (c'est possible??), I promised you brownies, and brownies you shall get. So to speak, that is - The Goods will remain in my freezer, waiting patiently for the perfect night to arrive for their date with vanilla ice cream. I even marched down to my freezer, pulled a few out and had a photo shoot session with them on my kitchen table when I realized this morning I had, once again, forgotten to snap their beautiful little mugs before devouring the majority of them - that is how determined I was to give all of you your just desserts: chocolately, gratifying squares of decadence, just shy of sheer perfection.

You see, I'm very particular about my brownies. Brownies and chocolate cake need to be done very well. It isn't that I find no pleasure in even the sorriest of brownies and other chocolate confections because, let's be real, I am female; however, chocolate makes me weak in the knees, and so I refuse to stop until the God of Brownie Recipes is unearthed. This recipe, it's no Lord Almighty, but it's still good. Satisfying. Rich and delicate, with an extremely subtle and downplayed sweetness cutting into it in perfect harmony with the occasional crunch from a lingering chocolate chip. Really, this recipe is spot-on...if you like cakey brownies, that is. Which, as I mentioned before about the whole loving all things chocolate, I do, but they're not what really does it for me. What really does it for me is the dense, fudgey, barely-uses-any-flour-at-all recipe that, when eaten chilled, is more akin to a softer form of pure chocolate than to the baked goods family. You see, I know what I want in a brownie, and while these may be the be-all-and-end-all for someone else - and many, many people who tried these could not stop raving - I will continue on in my search for The One.

All of that being said, there happens to be vanilla ice cream in my freezer right now and dinner is the only thing standing between me and an a la mode dessert that is enough to make a girl very, very happy.

Decadently Bittersweet Cake Brownies, courtesy of Healthy and Gourmet
Yield: 15 - 20 (I 1.5x the recipe and got 28 decently sized squares)

The Ingredients
1 cup all purpose flour
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup vegetable oil
2/3 cup packed brown sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 cup low fat evaporated milk
1 1/2 cups dark chocolate chips (I only had semi-sweet, so I used those)
1/2 cup chopped pecans (omitted*)

The Method
Preheat your oven to 325 degrees fahrenheit. Grease a 9x9 inch square pan; in 1.5x the recipe, I used one 9x9 and one 8x8 and am pretty happy with the results.

Combine the flour, cocoa, and baking soda in a medium bowl and set aside. In another medium bowl, stir together the oil, sugar, eggs, and vanilla; set this aside, too. Meanwhile, in a medium sauce pan over medium-low heat, gently melt 2/3 of the chocolate chips (1 cup) into the evaporated milk. Once all of the chips have melted, remove the pan from the heat and allow to cool.

Once cool, whisk in first the sugar mixture, then the flour mixture, until just incorporated. Fold in the remaining 1/2 cup chocolate as well as the nuts, if using. Pour the batter into the prepared pans, place in the oven, and bake for approximately 30 minutes. In contrast to how you would test a cake for doneness, a toothpick inserted into these brownies after 30 minutes will, apparently, not come out clean. After reading this, I didn't bother wasting a toothpick, and just trusted my oven, the recipe, and the notion that slightly undercooked desserts are not nearly as disasterous as slightly overcooked ones. I mean, that batter is the best part anyway, right? So, pull them out at 30 minutes with all the faith in the world, cool them for at least 10 minutes, and then slice 'em into squares and serve them warm, cool, or - if you're completely normal like me - just a tad bit frozen (okay, maybe save that for the fudgier ones). Vanilla ice cream, whipped cream, and hot fudge are totally optional, but highly recommended.

Notes:
*One day, I will make desserts with nuts in them, but it makes it much more complicated for sharing. Although, being forced to eat a couple of extra brownies or a slightly larger piece of cake is not the biggest grievance I've had to undertake.

Enjoy!

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