Fudgy Brownies

Alright, so at 9:30 at night, I am having a major chocolate craving – you know, it happens once a while. Well my Easter chocolate is somehow already gone (I did notice the H sneaking some throughout the week), so a no go with that easy fix. But what else helps a chocolate craving – good old fashioned brownies. Now I have made a few different brownies in my time, orange brownies, cookie dough brownies, butterless brownies, mississippi mud brownies and cream cheese brownies. I also have a few more sitting in “to try” recipe collection. However, I immediately knew exactly what brownies I needed to satisfy myself, and what do you know I can’t find the recipe anywere. It was to late to call my mom who has a copy or my Aunt who originally gave me the recipe. I had a slight recall of what might be going into it, but really it was pretty vague. I decided to give it a try anyways and see what I could come up with.

The result of my “I think it had some of this” baking, was a delicious fudgy and gooey brownie (what I was going for), but sadly not quite the original. Still they were great, and I am saving this one in a couple of places now incase Mom has lost her copy of the original (it has been known to happen).

Fudgy Brownies:
½ cup margerine (I know this sounds weird to use marg, but it was still really tastey, and they do taste different with real butter)
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1/3 cup Cocoa powder
½ cup AP flour

In a saucepan melt the margerine and then mix in the sugar and the egg. Be careful not to add the egg when the butter is too hot or you will get a friend egg.

Mix in the vanilla. Add the cocoa powder and stir in. Fold in the flower.

Pour into a 8x8 pan (I always line mine with parchment paper, which it makes incredibly easy to get the brownies out). Bake in an oven preheated to 350F for about 20 minutes. The center of the brownies will still look wet under a baked crust.

Let the brownies cool in the pan for about 5 to 8 minutes and then remove from the pan to finish cooling. The middle of the brownies will still be quite soft and gooey. Enjoy.

I always like eating these slightly warm, and they are still my favorite brownie recipe. My H really enjoyed these, and took ½ the pan to work today.

Rainbow Cupcakes

Alright, so I know it is past easter, but spring needed some encouragement around here (seriously, why is it snowing on April 27th?), and I wanted to do something fun as three coworkers have birthdays this week.

I used to exact recipe from I Heart Cuppycakes found here, and they turned out great!

I only used four colors for my dough, but the colors were nice and bright.

After baking:



Well alright, I experimented with a new icing recipe, as a lot of people around here don’t like lots of icing on their cupcakes (I know, what is wrong with them?). I got the icing recipe out of an old church cookbook and it looked interesting.

Icing (I halfed their recipe and it was plenty, but it can be stored in the fridge for 3 months apparently)
2 tbsp Cold Water
4 ½ tbsp White sugar

2/3 cup cooking oil
1 egg
1 tps vanilla
4 ½ cups icing sugar

1. Mix the water and white sugar together, set aside and let dissolve (stir often).
2. Beat together the cooking oil, egg, vanilla and icing sugar until it resembles whipped cream (now mine never got light and fluffy, but it did get thick and creamy.)
3. Add in the water and sugar mix. (At this point I had to add another cup of icing sugar to thicken it up a bit, but that seams to always happen, must be something about were I live, or how I measure, which umm, I have to admit a “close enough” method most days)

I really liked this icing, it smoothed itself on the top, and looked really good, as well and really stuck to the sprinkles. My H was really grateful that I hadn’t put a bunch of buttercream on top as well.

Pie Donuts (Sorry for taking so long with this one)

Alright, so I am really late on putting this up, but by the amount of interest my simple mention of these delightful treat created, I thought I would still do the post.

I stumbled across these on CakeSpy one day, and decided I had to try making them. I don’t eat cooked fruit, but they looked like fun. Now they had made a banana filled Pie Donut and while that was great, I know my H has a soft spot for peaches, and seeing as how I still had some packets of frozen peaches from the large peach deliver summer 08, I decided to try peach donuts!

I used the same recipe for the pie dough as Cakespy, and it worked well (I did have to add a little more liquid to get a rollable consistency).

Filling:
1 can of peach slices drained (I used a packet of frozen peaches I had prepared myself, but it is the same)
Cinnamon to taste (I used about 1 tsp)

Cut the peaches into small cubes, this can be done with a fork and doing a rough mash of the slices. You still want some small chunks, not a puree.

Mix in the cinnamon, and leave sit while you roll out the dough.

Donuts:
The recipe can be found here.

I rolled out the dough, and then cut it into strips about 7cm wide for you Canadians (My ruler was in cm, but I think that is about 1.5 inches), and experimented with different lengths. I found the shorter ones worked best, as longer ones made donuts that were big in size, but floppy as they were a little skinny.

Next fill with you filling:

Don’t add too much or you won’t be able to close the dough around it.

Close the dough around the filling wetting the edges of the dough so it sticks together and pull around into a circle.



Next Deep fry the donut until brown and crispy. Drain on a paper towel.



I topped mine with a simple vanilla icing.



Mine don’t look as pretty as Cakespy’s, but everyone really like them and I am getting asked all the time when I am going to make more now, by people who have had them and people wanting to try them. They were less work than I thought going in and fun to do, but not something I am willing to do on a regular basis.

Holiday Cooking

So the holidays were extremely busy and I just realised that I didn't post my holiday baking, so here goes:



1. "Snow balls"
This is simply a chocolate cake mixed with the cream cheese icing and dipped in white chocolate. I addapted this from the wonderful Bakerella, who has also done many versions of these delightful treats. They are always a huge hit when i make them.

2. Chocolate Caramel Fudge.
This recipe is adapted from Aunt Teen's Fudge recipe on allrecipe.com. Instead of adding nuts to the fudge i swirled in caramel. The caramel was melted kraft vanilla caramels, the same used to make caramel apples. I put one back into the fudge.

3. Peanut Brittle
Last year I did the cheater way of making brittle, and while it was great, I wanted to try making it on the stove this year and hoped to avoid last years problem of not cooking long enough. I tried Mom's Best Peanut Brittle from allrecipe and it turned out great. I used roasted peanuts and cooked them just as the instructions said. This resulted in the occasional nut tasting like it was burnt. After reading reviews, I found I should have added the peanuts at the end becuase they were the roasted variety. Otherwise this was a very tasty recipe and will be used for years.

4. Chocolate Covered Toffee
I have made this before and it is fantastic, it tastes just like a score bar!

5. Homemade Candy Canes
This recipe came from Martha Stewart, and while tasty, could have used a little more peppermint. these were the first time I have made candy that required "pulling" and it was quite the adventure.

Cookie Dough brownies

So, I had a bad day at work yesterday and was in desperate need of baking therapy and comfort food, and what says "its all okay" better than a brownie or chocolate chip cookies? Then I remembered the recipe I had recently seen on one of my favorite blogs - Bakerella. Now, I don't use mixes very often for anything and didn't have even any of my "emergency mixes" in the cupboard so I did a from scratch version. I picked a brownie batter that I use for a slightly cakey brownie, my favourite chocolate chip recipe and tried my brownies.

I ended up with way more cookie dough than was needed, so as an extra bonus I got some chocolate chip cookies as well

Chocolate Chip Cookies
1 cup butter
1 cup packed brown sugar
½ cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 ½ tsp vanilla
2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
Chocolate Chips ( I used ½ a 350g bag)

1.Cream together the margerine/butter, and the sugars. Beat in the eggs and vanilla.
2.Combine the flour, baking soda and salt. Gradually blend into the creamed mixture.
3.Stir in the chocolate chips.

Brownie Batter:
1 cup butter
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 cups white sugar
4 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 pinch salt

1.Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium Heat. Add cocoa powder and stir until smooth.
2.Add the sugar, eggs and vanilla, mixing until smooth.
3.Mix the flour and salt, then add to the chocolate mixture.

To Make the Brownies:

1.Pour the brownie batter into a greased or paper lined 9x13 baking pan.
2.Spoon cookie batter into the brownie batter in the pan and gently push down. (Note I only used about ½ of the cookie batter for this, the rest I used to actually make cookies.)
3.Bake at 350F for about 35 minutes.

Peaches and Cream Pie

Well the actual recipe I found was "Award WinningPeaches and Cream Pie" by Debbi Borsick, but seeing as how I changed the recipe a little, and I have won no prizes, I didn't think it fair to keep the Award Winning.

Anyways, I had a ton of peaches to deal with (and still have a few more), so what is the first thing you think of when your peaches are getting ripe on you - Peach Pie! I wanted to do something fun with this one, I knew I would get sick of them soon, and who doesn't like peaches and cream. The recipe had some great review and looked easy enough, so I hauled my Hubs to the grocery store and then got cooking.

Now, this is not a traditional pie crust, but I have to say that it is pretty tasty. It isn't what you think of though when you think of traditional peach pie.

Peaches and Cream "Pie"

"Crust"
1 box (non instant) vanilla pudding mix
3/4 cup all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
3 Tbsp butter
1 egg
1/2 cup milk
1/2 tsp salt

Filling:
~26 ounces of fresh peaches, pealed and sliced

Topping:
8 ounce block of cream cheese
1/2 cup white sugar
Any juice left from the peaches

Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 350F and grease the sides of a 10inch deep pie plate.
2. Mix together the pudding mix, flour, baking powder and salt. Mix in the egg, milk and butter. Beat at medium to high for 2 minutes before pouring into the pie plate.
3. Arrange the peaches over the batter.
4. Cream the cream cheese until fluffly, then add in the sugar and up to 3Tbsp of the peach juice. Spoon this mixture over the peaches.
5. Sprinkle the top with sugar and cinnamon ( I don't know the proportions I used or how much, as I have a premixed shaker in my cupboard I use to top stuff).
6. Bake in the oven for 30-35 mintues until the top is golden.
7. Allow to cool and chill in the fridge slightly before serving.

Review:
Hubs loves this, it is one of the few food that has been called "great" in a while (high praise from the man with no discriminating taste - he will eat pretty much anything). He has not gotten sick of it yet, even though last night he said "I never want to see another peach". When asked if that included this pie - he quickly said that the pie could stay!

It's Peachy

Well, Peach season is upon us, and thankfully I have inlaws living in the okanagan - which means amazing peaches picked and shipped to me. However, I failed to specify the number of peaches I wanted on the last shipment. Boy was I shocked when I went to pick them up (from out trucker friend) and found myself with 4 cases of peaches! Oh and that would be around 80lbs - of fresh peaches, either ripe or well on their way to being ripe.

2 cases were promplty sent to my mother for canning and dehydrating, leaving me with 2 boxes to try and figure out what to do with. So far the list is:

1. A peach and cream pie
2. Freezer pie fillings
3. Fresh peach pie
4. Eating a whole lot of peaches.


If anyone out there has any ideas that do not involve canning or jam ( I do not the equipment or kitchen space) please let me know!