One of my favorite things to do is take regular, simple recipes and jazz them up. So then I thought, what's better than brownies? Brownies with a rich chocolate frosting that literally melts in your mouth. So good, and yet so simple!
Yesterday was National Chocolate Day. That is a big deal, and it calls for some celebration. I felt like baking, so my first thought was that I would make pumpkin bread since I've been meaning to for a while (no worries, it will get made and posted eventually), but then once I remembered that there is NO chocolate in that, I just had to switch to a recipe with chocolate. In come Chocolate Frosted Brownies.
One of my favorite things to do is take regular, simple recipes and jazz them up. So then I thought, what's better than brownies? Brownies with a rich chocolate frosting that literally melts in your mouth. So good, and yet so simple!
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I've been trying to stick to the fall theme lately. Things like pumpkin spice and apples pretty much sums it up. These are soft and chewy blondies sandwiched with an apple filling in the middle and a maple glaze on top. The maple glaze is just to die for; it really makes the blondie. The apple filling is also really good because you cook the apples with sugar and cinnamon and butter before cooking them with the blondies. I always think this makes a huge difference. The apples turn out softer and more flavorful.
Another note, make sure you allow the glaze to set for at least 8 minutes before frosting the blondies. It may seem like an unnecessary step because you wait for it to set up again once you frost the blondies, but the blondies do not have a flat surface, so if you do not wait the frosting will all fall towards the middle and down the sides. There's nothing like the combination of peanut butter and chocolate. I use it all the time in my recipes, and so should you. This is just a classic blondie with peanut butter in the batter and chocolate chips mixed in. The blondies are very rich so I suggest making 16 bars out of this, as opposed to maybe 12. Also, resist the temptation to cut the bars right out of the oven pretty please! I waited a half hour and that worked well enough, although I've always found that if you really want clean perfect cuts (like what you see in the pictures), cut them the day after. I did cut them half an hour after taking them out of the oven, I just recut the edges because I have to take pretty pictures for all of you, but since you don't have that issue half an hour will do,
Saturday was my graduation party, and of course, I was on charge of all the desserts, yay! It was so much fun to make all the desserts. I made six different desserts: chocolate chip cookies (of course), chocolate chip pecan shortbread cookies (my mom's secret best cookie ever), double chocolate sable cookies, red velvet cupcakes (coming soon), apple crumb tart (also coming soon), and then lemon bars. I had no idea, but everyone was so excited for the lemon bars! It was so many people's favorite desserts! Even my aunt, who is definitely not a dessert person (I know, crazy, right?) loved these and said they were amazing. Also, they're so great for the summer! They're nice and fresh with just the right amount of sweetness and sourness. Even I liked them, and I'm not a huge fan of lemon desserts, so that must mean they're good, right?
Anyone else know of Peanut Butter Patties? They are the beloved Girl Scout cookies that have a circular piece of shortbread with peanut butter and dipped completely in chocolate. One day we saw them being sold outside of Shaw's, and having been a Girl Scout for so many years I just had to buy at least one box to support them, so I bought a box of peanut butter patties, thin mints, and caramel delites, which are the three best flavors, trust me. The peanut butter patties were gone by the end of the night, the caramel delites by the next morning, and the thin mints by the day after. My family was mostly responsible for this, but nevertheless, peanut butter patties have always been my favorite, Peanut butter and chocolate is a match made in heaven, I mean seriously.
These bars are extremely easy, take only about 15 minutes of preparation, and they look so impressive after slicing them! I mean look at those pictures, I was so proud. And, next time you're really in the mood for those iconic Girl Scout cookies, you can get them right from your kitchen! I haven't blogged a recipe for a while now, and I apologize to all the people who are just desperately waiting for a new one to come out, I know you missed me. If you're wondering, I actually have been baking a lot, but not new recipes. I made chocolate chip cookies, cream puffs, brownies, and what not for events or other things, but I haven't made a new recipe to put on here. So, today I wanted to not only make a new recipe but one that was kind of summer-y because it is such a beautiful spring day out. Also because this past Friday was my very last day of high school, so I'm done! So now it's practically summer for me, which means I am working more shifts at the cafe I work at and therefore baking a lot more (I bake for a cafe)! I'm really excited, plus I have all these fun senior activities coming up soon and my graduation is in less than a month, so I'll be having lots of fun.
Anyways, back to the recipe, these bars are soooo quick and easy, and they're so delicious! I love the little touch of cinnamon. You wouldn't think it goes but it does. My one tip would be wait probably at least an hour before slicing the bars, or maybe only half an hour to slice and then an hour to remove them from the pan. They don't stick to the pan but they're not very firm they're kind of like a slightly firmer crumble, so they need to firm up before they can look like bars when you remove them so give them time. Otherwise, great, delicious recipe! Tomorrow is another french club meeting at my school, which if you actually read my little blurbs under each recipe, you know that I am one of the leaders and bake for the members of the club every other Tuesday. They are some lucky people. I'll be honest though, since I always have to make them on a monday night when I have a lot of homework, I usually do something quick and easy like brownies or chocolate chip cookies (all homemade though, don't even mention boxes in front of me or I'll go off on a an extremely heated tangent). However, since I went to Florida last week and haven't posted in a while, I went with something more interesting so I could post it for you all.
And all this landed me at peanut butter stuffed brownies. I've made brownies before with King Arthur Flour mini peanut butter cups on top, and I've made peanut butter and chocolate chip cookies, but these brownies beat them all. I'm telling you, these brownies are perfectly fudgy, decadent, wonderful brownies, made even better with a melt-in-your-mouth peanut butter filling. We all know peanut butter and chocolate is a combination made in heaven, but this is the best combination of that combination I've ever tried, if you can follow me. Anyways, all I'm trying to say is go make these now! You probably have all the ingredients in your pantry and even if you don't want to eat them all (which will be hard not to do), then you can make some pretty good friends. These are another batch of goodies going off to see my sister in Maine. I was going to make her cookies, but after scrolling through the recipe index of this blog, I realized that I had way too many cookies on her in comparison to the number of bar and brownie recipes. Bars need the love too, so I went with bars, and I doubt my sister will be too upset, because these are amazing. Who would've thought cinnamon went so well with white chocolate? Well, it does. And these bars are an amazing conjunction of those two beautiful things. The preparation is a little difficult because the batter is thick, but just don't worry about it being perfect because it spreads out when baking. These are so worth it anyway!
OK, Halloween is officially over, except if you're one of those people who makes it a Halloweekend. I already don't really like Halloween, so why make it a weekend, really? It's over.
With my ranting on Halloween complete, in comes the recipe! Now that it's November, that means the Thanksgiving stretch is in full swing, and I thought this recipe reflected that well, so here you go: Chocolate Chip Pecan Pumpkin Bars. Note that if pecans or nuts in general are not your thing, this recipe is still great without them. These bars are really good! I've been on a cookie roll recently, and thought it was time for a change, plus a little pumpkin, and man did I pick a great choice! One bite tastes like exactly like autumn, if that's even possible, but just believe me it does. I also have to tell this funny story (or at least it's funny to me). I was making this recipe, and I finished all the directions, so I was like great, now just pour it into the pan! Luckily, my baker instincts went off and said, wait a second, this doesn't look right. Turns out the original recipe I got this from had you measure out the flour and spices into a separate bowl in the beginning, but forgot to ever say to add them into the mix at the end. I noticed this pretty quickly, so I just put the flour in and it tasted perfect, but in my head I was sincerely shaming the recipe. Thank god I noticed or else these would have been some not so yummy bars... So enjoy the recipe, and make sure to add the flour! Have you ever heard of Biscoff? Well if you haven't, go to your local Shaw's or Star Market now, because it is simply revolutionary. This company called Lotus, which is mainly European, creates these Speculoos cookies, which is apparently a biscuit that is a specialty in Germany. Well whatever it is, it is really really good! But here comes the best part! They decided to make these wonderful cookies into a spread so you can put it on anything! It is SOOOOO good. It's called Biscoff spread, and although it's mainly European, you can find it in some of the big supermarkets around here. I would highly suggest it.
These blondies use the Biscoff spread I just raved about above, as well as white chocolate chips, to create a creamy and buttery taste that is absolutely delicious! Especially right out of the oven, these are to die for, I promise. You can also use Trader Joe's cookie butter as Biscoff, they are almost exactly the same thing. |
AuthorMy name is Katherine and I love, love, love to bake! You can find all my baking adventures on this blog, plus you can follow me on Social Media by clicking below! Archives
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