Cook Crook Creation: Brownie Awesomeness

Merry Christmas! Unbelievably I am sitting in a quiet house right now on Christmas Eve while my boys are off doing some last minute shopping. I still have some baking, cleaning and cooking left to do, but had to share this fabulous treat recipe for those of you who need some more sweets for your holiday menu or maybe a last minute gift! I created these one night in a panic to make something delicious for my husband's co-workers for Christmas. I had brownie mix but did not just want to make plain old brownies. I stumbled upon a fudge recipe that had a pretzel crust and thought why not a pretzel crusted fudge brownie? And then, not wanting the top to be outdone, decided to make the brownies with a cream cheese swirl. Hubby walked into the kitchen while I was "inventing" and asked me what I was making....my answer was Brownie Awesomeness!

Brownie Awesomeness

Crust:

1 ½ cup crushed pretzels

1 stick (1/2 cup) melted butter

½ cup granulated sugar

Brownie:

1 package fudge brownie mix (I used the Duncan Hines Family size)

¼  water

¾ cup vegetable oil

2 eggs

Cream Cheese Swirl:

6 oz. softened cream cheese

1 egg

¼ Tsp vanilla

1 tbsp sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix crushed pretzels, butter and sugar in a medium bowl and then spread into a 13x9 baking dish. Press the “crust” evenly into the bottom of the dish and bake for 8 minutes. Allow to cool for at least 10 minutes.

Prepare brownie mix according to the package directions for “fudge like” brownies: add the brownie mix, water, oil and eggs into a large bowl and mix well. In another bowl, add the cream cheese, egg, vanilla and sugar and beat well with an electric mixer until smooth.

Gently spread the brownie mix on the pretzel crust. Using a spoon, add dollops of the cream cheese mixture across the surface of the brownies. Then using a knife or small spreader, gently swirl the cream cheese into the brownie batter until all of cream cheese is incorporated. Swirl in opposite directions to get desired look.

Bake for 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Allow to cool for at least one hour on a cooling rack. Slice with a sharp knife into 6 columns and 4 rows.

I wish you and your family the merriest of Christmases and a Happy New Year!

Steal of the Week: Pumpkin Bread

That awesome first CSA box experience included 2 pie pumpkins. Here then is my opportunity to confess I have NEVER cooked with fresh pumpkin. However, the opportunity presented itself and I was on the search for a pumpkin recipe calling for the fresh stuff.
Then I found this recipe for Pumpkin Bread by one of my favorite chefs, Alton Brown. It was especially attractive because it used the seeds too.
While peeling the pumpkin proved difficult (I was down a vegetable peeler) the food processor made quick work of shredding the flesh. I toasted the seeds to add and the result was moist, delicious and devoured by my office in one work day!

Admittedly, the seeds in my opinion did not add as much to the bread as I thought and I do not think they are absolutely necessary. I can see variations of this and definitely muffins would be great!

Meatless Monday: Quick and Easy Banana Bread

I realize summer doesn't exactly conjure up images of baking bread...but I had some overripe bananas left and for some reason banana bread sounded great! When the weather gets warm, and I do feel like baking (which as any of you know is not THAT often) I do my baking int he evening when the temperatures are cooling. No one wants a hot oven in the heat of the day!

I found this recipe for "quick and easy" banana bread on Cooks.com , not a terribly complex or visually appealing website but it has a tons of variations of the same dish you are looking to make, and it makes cook crooking an easy venture sometimes! This particular recipe is super quick and easy, because it uses self-rising flour...an easy short cut and something I tend to have on hand because I am such an impatient baker!

Banana Bread  Courtesy of Cooks.com

2 c. self-rising flour
1/2 c. butter
2 eggs
1/2 c. nut meats or raisins (I decided to use Blueberry Craisins to try something different)
1 c. sugar
3 mashed bananas 
Melt butter and pour into mixing bowl. Stir in sugar, eggs and bananas (in that order). Add flour to banana mixture gradually, adding nut meats or raisins last.Pour batter into well-greased loaf pans (2) or a 9x13-inch cake pan. Bake at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes. Bread is done when toothpick inserted in thickest part comes out clean.

I wanted to make and sure all this bread so I made one in a loaf pan and one in an 8x8 pan. In hindsight, I should have stuck to the instructions because the breads came out a little flatter than I would like, but the flavor was there...and it was eaten in about an hour when it got brought into work! I also enjoyed the Craisins in the bread. I am going to use this combination next time to make some muffins and add a little bit more banana for extra moist banana goodness!

Baking for a Beginner: Bagels

I have mentioned many a time about my fear of baking. Yet, the more I have been writing this blog and trying new techniques, my confidence has improved to the point I am making brownies from scratch. Now with winter having finally arrived, I get even more motivated to bake and to look for recipes that take me out of my comfort zone. This now brings me to my fear of working with yeast. Interestingly enough I had a conversation with my mother a few days ago about how she won't work with yeast because she has never had any success at it. Great, so now there is a childhood embedded fear of yeast I have to overcome!

No matter because when I saw Cooking Light's recipe for "real bagels" I completely ignored the yeast component for two reasons 1) I love bagels 2) I am determined to try and make more things instead of buying from the store. My husband, however, thinks I am insane (well in this case more insane than usual) because he is of the opinion that they are readily available and he is also aware of the trauma I undergo when baking. I clearly ignored him and off to work I went.

My Kitchen-aid mixer was very happy to get some use.

Now here is the step I stink at EVERY SINGLE TIME. The rising. Oh, the rising, or lack thereof. I can't decide if it's impatience on my part in preparing the yeast and water, the water temperature or if I can blame it on my husband and his insistence to keep the house at 67 degrees. That's Fahrenheit folks. I am sure that the part of the recipe that says keep dough in a warm place (85 degrees) assumes that you can achieve that temperature without having to turn an oven (or a space-heater) on.

So having failed to achieve adequate rising, I soldiered on and made my little bagels.

The boiling part I was very good at:

Being that I DID NOT plan to make bagels on this particular day, the only add-ons I had were sesame seeds so I made some sesame...

And some plain. They actually looked very nice coming out of the oven. They were just...small. 

Actually they reminded me of those Lender's bagels I used to scoff at in the grocery store when I had a Bodo's Bagels so close that I was spoiled with authentic fabulous bagels and could not imagine why a grocery store in my immediate area would even carry them! My little bagels did have a nice flavor and I know where I went wrong so I will try it again...guess I will just have to turn the oven on in order to get the rise I need!

Meatless Monday: Brownies on the Lighter Side

I have often made the statement that "I don't bake" right? For years I have stood by my mantra of being a cook and not a baker....but after hearing Tom Colicchio chastise many a chef on Top Chef for a similar mantra, I decided I couldn't stand on that principle anymore. So I have started slowly, cheating with mixes and taking baby steps to doing some real baking. I have a huge chocolate fan on my hands, also known as my husband, and a step-daughter also with mad-love for the baked good, so I have been experimenting a little more each week.

Recently, when I saw the Cooking Light recipe for classic fudge brownies I had to give it a go! And having recently purchased my first digital kitchen scale, I was determined to follow the recipe to the letter. Actually one of the reasons I have shied away from baking has been the lack of creative freedom I always thought it had, Now I am learning there is still room for changes and creativity, once you get the basics down pact! Even with this recipe I made a few changes (like no nuts for my no nuts in brownies gang) and felt good about the results.

The recipe and Cooking Light as a rule always recommends that for the best light recipes, you have to have quality ingredients where it counts. In this case, I went high quality chocolate:

And because it was baking, I worked really hard to prepare a proper mise en place:

One big change I made was to substitute half of the sugar for Splenda. I wasn't brave enough to make a full substitution but thought the half and half would work out well. I also substituted dark chocolate chips for the chopped chocolate portion of the recipe. The batter seemed a good consistency and into the oven it went:

Now here was a case of me not reading the ENTIRE recipe before proceeding. I missed the pan size portion of the recipe. Their recipe calls for a 9x9 but at the bottom mentions you can use an 8x8 but need to cook them about 5 minutes longer. Missed that completely so it is entirely possible I pulled these out three times before they were done! But they did come out looking good. The real test was going to be my two chocolate treat experts. Husband demanded a second one after inhaling the first.

This is the picture of my step-daughter when I joked about taking the brownie from her:

So this recipe is a keeper...and I look forward to perfecting it a bit. Personally I thought they were a little too fudgy but the experts all chimed in that they were perfect as is...maybe I will just make a batch with nuts for me sometime!