The “Baked” Brownie

A very facetious friend of mine made this comment to me: “I may not know alot about cooking, but aren’t all brownies baked?”  Har-dee-har-har. Yes, they’re all baked, but this one is THE “Baked” brownie. Not a baked brownie.

I hope everyone out there had a great Independence Day with alot of great food and some fantastic fireworks.  I know a couple of you celebrated your birthdays too!  I enjoyed a nice relaxing day with some good friends, good food and some brownies!

I have a friend who loves brownies and is always asking me to make him some. He even offered to bring me the supplies. I don’t think he really meant it, but it’s nice that he offered. I’ve been meaning to try out this brownie recipe and since he was going to be participating in the 4th festivities, I thought I’d give it a go.

Since I was going to be using semi-sweet chocolate (instead of the bittersweet the recipe calls for), I decided to cut down on the amount of white granulated sugar in the recipe. I don’t think that affected the outcome of the brownies, which were very good by the way. I can’t say they were my favorite, but they’re probably near the top of my short list. I think we polished off a good 2/3 of the pan that night. I think my nephew, who’s staying with us for a week, polished off ½ of the leftovers.

The Baked Brownie
Yield: 24 brownies
Adapted from Baked New Frontiers in Baking
Printable Recipe

Ingredients:
1 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
11 ounces semi-sweet chocolate, chopped
½ pound butter, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 teaspoon instant coffee granules
1 cup granulated sugar
½ cup light brown sugar
5 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350F. Spray the sides and bottom of 9×13 baking pan.

In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, salt and cocoa powder together.

Put the chocolate, butter and instant coffee in a large bowl and set it over a saucepan of simmering water, stirring occasionally, until the chocolate and butter are completely melted and smooth. Turn off the heat, but keep the bowl over the water and add the sugars. Whisk until completely combined; then remove the bowl from the pan. The mixture should be room temperature.

Add 3 eggs to the chocolate mixture and whisk until combined. Add the remaining eggs and whisk until combined. Add the vanilla and stir until combined. Do not overbeat the batter at this stage or your brownies will be cakey.

Sprinkle the flour mixture over the chocolate mixture. Using a spatula, fold the flour mixture into the chocolate until just a bit of the flour mixture is visible.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top. Bake in the center of the oven for 30 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through the baking time, until a toothpick inserted into the center of the brownies comes out with a few moist crumbs sticking to it. Let the brownies cool completely, then cut them into squares and serve.

Red, White & Blue Cupcakes For U(SA)

…and for ME!  Happy Almost Birthday to me! Two more days, till I turn double 3.

I told hubby that I was going to make my own birthday (cup)cake this year.  He asked me if I wanted him to make the cake.  I said, uh, no, that’s ok.    We’ve got a good thing going, let’s not change it…you know, I cook, he does the yard work.  Heehee. 

Anywho, ever since I saw the rainbow cakes making their way around the blogosphere, I wanted to give them a try.  I thought, what better time to try, than for Independence Day, with a red, white & blue theme.  I just needed to find the right cake recipe. 

I’ve read alot of good things about Dorie’s Perfect Party Cake and I have her Baking book, so I took a peek.  She uses lemon as a flavor component; not something I wanted in my birthday (cup)cake.  Don’t get me wrong, I like lemon, but I wanted just a classic white birthday cake flavor.  I decided to go ahead and use her recipe and sub in some vanilla.

I was very pleased with the texture of these cupcakes.  It’s exactly what I think of when I think birthday cake.  The colors turned out pretty good too.  Just beware, you have to use a lot of red just to get this particular shade. What kinda sucked was that my colors didn’t quite turn out the way I’d hoped or expected.  I spooned in the red, the white then the blue batter.  As you can see the blue fell into the midle of the cupcake.  Oh well.  It still tasted good.

This frosting is one of my favs…and I don’t usually like frosting (I’m a whipped cream frosting kind of girl).  One thing to keep in mind; about halfway through the red & blue started fading so I had to re-stripe the bag.  It probably would have been wiser of me to use a new bag, but I’m lazy and stingy frugal.    The colors started blending together a bit after the second striping, so I’d definitely recommend starting fresh with a new bag. 

Red, White & Blue Cupcakes with Red, White Chocolate & Blue Cream Cheese Frosting
Yield: 18 cupcakes
Cake adapted from Baking From My Home To Yours (Perfect Party Cake)
Frosting from The Essential Baker
Printable Recipe

Cupcake Ingredients:
2 ¼ cups cake flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 ¼ cups milk
4 large egg whites
1 ½ cups sugar
¼ pound butter
1 ½ teaspoons vanilla

Red & blue icing colors

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350F. Line cupcake tins with paper liners; set aside.

Sift (or whisk) together the flour, baking powder and salt.

In a separate bowl, whisk the milk and egg whites.

In the mixer bowl, cream the butter and sugar until light in color; about 2-3 minutes. Beat in the vanilla, then add 1/3 of the flour mixture and beat until incorporated. Add ½ of the milk/egg mixture and beat until incorporated. Add ½ of the remaining flour mixture and beat until incorporated. Add the rest of the milk/egg mixture and beat until homogeneous (as Dorie puts it). Then add the rest of the flour mixture and beat the batter until it’s mixed thoroughly.

Separate the batter into 3 small bowls. Set aside one of the bowls of batter (white). In another one, mix in some red icing color until you get the color you want. In the last bowl, mix in some blue icing color until you get the color you want. (Use the “mixing color in icing” technique.)

Spoon the batter into the cupcake liners in whatever order you choose. I put red on the bottom, white in the middle, then blue on top (my blue fell into the middle of the cupcake anyway). You could even swirl them for a tie-dye effect.

Bake cupcakes for 18-20 minutes. Allow to cool completely before decorating.

Frosting Ingredients:
8 ounces white chocolate
8 ounces cream cheese, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 ½ cups confectioners’ sugar

Red & blue icing colors

Directions:
Melt white chocolate in the microwave. Heat the chocolate in 30 second intervals and stir in-between each round.

Beat the cream cheese on medium speed until fluffy; about 2 minutes. Add vanilla and mix thoroughly. Add the sugar in 3 stages. Stop occasionally and scrape the bowl with a rubber spatula. Beat together until thoroughly blended. Add the melted white chocolate and blend together completely.

To get the red, white & blue colors use the “brush striping” technique.

Aren’t you glad to see a post about something other than cookies??? Five of the last 10 posts were cookie related! Step away from the cookies, Susan!

Hope everyone has a fun, but safe 4th of July!

Patriotic Sugar Cookies

I love the 4th of July.  Not just because it’s America’s Independence Day and everyone shoots off fireworks, but because it’s my birthday and those fireworks are for me too!  Ok, maybe not, but I like to think so. 

I’ll be 25 for the 8th time this year.  Haha.  I know 33 isn’t that old, but dang these years sure are flying by!  I need to savor them while I can.  Next thing you know, my kiddos will be all grown up and out the door.  I can say that right now, since both of them are napping and I’m enjoying my quiet “me” time.  I’ve forgotten all about last night and GB’s 5 hour non-sleeping, wanting to be held until 1:30am session. But, she does make it easy to forget, doesn’t she?

It’s gotten to the point where I don’t really care so much about celebrating my birthday.  As long as a few key people remember and wish me a happy birthday, I’m good. And if someone wants to give me an hour or two to myself to be pampered, ie: get a massage, I’m ok with that too.

I’ve been sending MC to school on M-W-F’s, but due to the upcoming holiday, they’ll be closed on Friday and having their class parties on Thursday.  The director said it was fine if I let MC go to school on Thursday to celebrate with all the kids. He wouldn’t know what he was missing if he didn’t go, but I’d like it if he was able to be involved. 

Anyway, there is always a sign-up sheet, so each family can contribute to the party.  The teachers really loved the snickerdoodles I made for them last week so much that they wanted me to bring them again.  I went ahead and made a batch and added red & blue icing colors (works much better than food coloring and you use alot less) to the dough, to give them a patriotic look.  I think next time I’d like to make them a bit darker.

I didn’t want to be boring and bring the same thing again, so I made some easy sugar cookies too. I rolled them in colored sanding sugars to give them their patriotic look; some in red, some in blue and some in pickle color too (Dr Seuss anyone?) Just kidding! Some were in red/white/blue.  You can’t really see the white sugar, since it’s not the same consistency as the red and blue.  Oh well, it was worth a shot. I didn’t want to make some with just white sugar, because that would just be boring.   Plus children always want the ones that are bright and colorful, right? 

Patriotic Sugar Cookies
Yield: 3 dozen
Printable Recipe

Ingredients:
3 cups flour
¾ teaspoon baking soda
¾ teaspoon cream of tartar
¾ teaspoons salt
¾ cup butter
¾ cup sugar
¾ cup brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 ½ teaspoons vanilla

Red & blue colored sanding sugar

Directions:
In a medium size bowl, whisk the flour, baking soda, cream of tartar and salt together; set aside.

Cream the butter and sugars until fluffy. Mix in the eggs and vanilla until incorporated. On the low setting of your mixer (stand or hand), add in ½ of the flour mixture. After the flour has been incorporated, add the other half of the flour mixture.

Wrap the cookie dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.

To Bake:
Preheat oven to 350F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Scoop cookies using a small cookie scoop (or pull apart enough dough to make about a 1 inch ball). Roll in white sugar or blue or red sanding sugar. Place cookies two inches apart on baking sheet and slightly flatten them. Bake for approximately 10 minutes.

Chocolate White Chocolate Chip Cookies

Alternate Title: “Use Good Cocoa Powder”

These cookies came to be because I wanted something sweet, something easy to bake and something with chocolate. I knew that if I was going to make a chocolate cookie, I wanted to use white chocolate to offset the color, as well as complement the flavor.

Beh. That’s all I have to say about these cookies. Beh. Not my favorite for sure. MC ate it up, but he’ll basically eat anything with sugar. Hubby thought it reminded him of a brownie in cookie form. Sure, the texture was there and the white chocolate was great. But, I think the cocoa powder I used is what made this cookie “meh” for me.

I usually buy Hershey’s Special Dark Cocoa Powder. But, last time I bought some Nestle Tollhouse Cocoa Powder. (These are really the only two easily available to me, without purchasing online or paying out the wazoo.) I don’t think I’ll be making that purchase again. The flavor of the Nestle cocoa powder was somewhat bland and the color was not as deep and rich as the Special Dark.

Next time I’ll use the good stuff.    In defense of the original recipe, it did say to use dutch processed cocoa powder.

Chocolate White Chocolate Chip Cookies
Yield: 20 cookies
Adapted from Joy of Baking
Printable Recipe

Ingredients:
1 cup all purpose flour
¼ cup cocoa powder
½ teaspoon baking powder
Pinch of salt
½ cup unsalted butter, room temperature
½ cup light brown sugar
¼ cup sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 ½ cups white chocolate chips
2 oz white chocolate, chopped

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

In a medium bowl, sift the cocoa powder, flour, baking powder, and salt.

In your mixer bowl, cream the butter and sugars until light and fluffy (2-3 minutes). Add the egg and vanilla and beat until incorporated. Add the flour mixture and beat until incorporated. Stir in the white chocolate chips.

Using a small cookie scoop or two spoons, place about 1 ½ tablespoons of batter on the prepared baking sheet, spacing about 2 inches apart. Top each cookie with a chunk of white chocolate.

Bake for approximately 8-9 minutes or until the cookies are still soft in the center but are firm around the edges. Remove from oven and let cookies cool on baking sheet for about 5 minutes before removing the cookies to a wire rack to cool completely.

Snickerdoodle Dandy

If you’ve never had a snickerdoodle, you don’t know what you’re missing.  And if you think it’s just a gussied up sugar cookie, you’d be wrong, wrong, wrong.  It has so much more flavor and depth than that. These cookies are cinnamony and soft and delicious. 

MC’s teachers know how much I love to bake and I’ve told them before, if they need treats for any of his class picnics or activities, to just let me know.  This week is Hawaiin Luau week and MC’s teachers asked if I’d bring some cookies.  I thought about trying to match the theme and discussed it with the teachers, but  we decided on these instead.  That way we didn’t have to worry about allergies or anything like that. 

I used the recipe from The Secrets of Baking cookbook and ended up having to make two batches because, despite the fact that Miss Sherry Yard says the recipe should make 3 1/2 dozen cookies, I ended up with 1 1/2 dozen.(The recipe below reflects a double batch.)  I mean, yes, mine were bigger than her recommended 3 inches, but not double. Oh well.

Since I had to make another batch, I decided to try it out with margarine, just to see if I could tell the difference.  I think I actually like the one made with margarine a little bit better.  Maybe it was the texture or maybe because the flavor was just a bit different, I’m not totally sure.  The dough made with butter was definitely firmer than the dough made with margarine.   I think that’s why the butter doodles were a little rounded; they kept their shape.  But, I liked the way the margarine snickers cracked a bit on top. I flattened the second tray of butter doodles and got a less rounded cookie than the first tray. 

Snickerdoodles
Yield: 3 dozen
Adapted from The Secrets of Baking
Printable Recipe

Ingredients:
3 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
½ pound cold unsalted butter or margarine*, cut into ½ inch pieces
1 ½ cup sugar, plus ½ cup for dusting
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon, plus 2 tablespoons for dusting
¼ teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 large eggs

Directions:
In a medium bowl whisk flour, baking soda and cream of tartar; set aside.

Cream butter on medium speed until pale yellow, about 2 minutes. Add 1 ½ cups sugar, 1 tablespoon cinnamon, salt and vanilla. Cream the mixture on medium speed until smooth, about 1 minute.

Add the eggs and beat on low until fully incorporated. Do not overbeat.

On low speed, add the flour mixture and beat until fully incorporated. Remove dough and wrap in plastic wrap and chill for at least 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350F.

Combine ½ cup sugar and 2 tablespoons cinnamon in a small bowl.

Pinch off pieces of chilled dough and roll into 1 inch balls. Drop the balls into the cinnamon sugar and coat thoroughly. Place balls 2 inches apart on parchment lined baking sheets.

Bake for 12 to 15 minutes or until the cookies look dry and feel firm.

*If using margarine, omit or decrease salt amount. Also note, the cookies spread just a little more with margarine, but I liked it that way.