Home Made Brownies! Easy, Clever, and I'm Never Going Back to the Box!

 

My friend and I were talking the other day about  how brownies made from pantry ingredients were probably better than the box mixes we usually buy.  I decided to try that thought out and loved the results!  Not only are these some of the best brownies I've ever had, they don't taste like preservatives!  Woohoo ;)  I found a great recipe from allrecipes.com and just made a few changes based on the comments others had written & what was in my pantry/fridge.  Here's the recipe that I'm sticking with:

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.  

Mix 1 stick of very softened (room temp or it will cook the eggs) salted butter, 4 eggs, 1/2 cup of vegetable oil, and 1 teaspoon of vanilla in a large bowl and set aside.  I used a fork to break up my eggs really well.  (To soften it, I leave my butter out for an hour or so or I nuke it for a minute and then let it cool to room temp.)

Next mix together 2 cups of white sugar, 1/2 cup of bakers chocolate (powder), 1 cup of all-purpose flour, 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder, and 1/2 teaspoon of salt really well with a fork in a medium bowl and set aside.  Why a fork?  Because I don't have a whisk or electric mixer and spoons/spatulas don't combine dry ingredients as well ;)

Add 1/3 of your dry ingredients to your wet, combine well, and keep adding a little at a time then mixing until the dry's gone.  Lightly spray a 9X13 inch deep pan with non-stick spray, add your brownie batter, and stick it on the top rack of your oven for 25 minutes.  My oven cooks things crazy quickly (sometimes burning them) so it might be a little longer for you-when you can stick a knife in the middle and it comes out clean, it's done. 

As soon as take the brownies out, use a knife to go around and loosen up the sides and make your cut lines. Let them cool in the pan for 10 minutes.  I found if I cut right away it's easier to get them out than if I do it later.

Enjoy :)

Try My Bewitching Chocolate Chip & Walnut Cookies Recipe!

I'm having lunch with some friends today and am bringing the dessert-my bewitching cookies!  I named them that because they're like magic for your taste buds ;)  Before I give you my recipe I want to share with you a few tools that have made baking cookies more fun and less stressful for me:

-Big and heavy aluminum foil (I never cook right on the pan-it's too much clean up business for me!)

-Large cookie sheets (Ikea has some nice affordable ones)
-Mixing bowls that are not very heavy, easy to clean, and easy to hold onto-I love the Oxo soft grips bowls!
-A sturdy, silicon spatula instead of a mixing spoon

-An ice cream scoop or "disher"

-A sturdy cookie spatula (Oxo makes a really great one-works well with grilled cheeses too!)
-A cooling rack(s)

Ok so first thing's first!  Ingredients:

-1/2 cup of softened salted butter (I zap mine in the microwave for about 50 seconds)

-1/2 cup of white sugar

-1/2 cup of light brown sugar

-1 egg

-A little less than 1/2 teaspoon of ground cinnamon (it's not enough to make it super cinnamony, but it adds that little tasty kick)
-1 and 1/2 cups of all purpose flour

-1/2 teaspoon of baking soda

-1 Tablespoon of hot water

-1/4 teaspoon of fine salt (table salt is just fine)

-1 and 1/2 cups of MILK CHOCOLATE chips

-1 and 1/2 cups of coarsely chopped walnuts

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and get to creaming that butter, white sugar, and brown sugar together.  Next add in your egg.  When the egg's fully mixed in add your cinnamon.  Mix together the baking soda and hot water in a little dish using a spoon and then add it into the batter.  Next add in your flour, then your chips and walnuts.  Foil a large cookie sheet (don't fold down the foil-let it be) and scoop rough balls of dough onto the sheet.  Once your tray is filled (these don't spread too much so I usually put them pretty close to each other) use your fingers to push the dough down lightly.  

Bake your cookies for about 7 minutes.  These will be done when you can see the tops and bottom edges are light brown.  After you take the pan out of the oven, hold the top right corner and bottom left corner of the foil in your hands and drop the foil from a few inches above a flat surface.  Let the cookies sit for a minute and then move them with a cookie spatula onto your cooling racks.  After a few minutes the cookies will be crunchy on the outside and a little gooey on the inside.  My recipe makes about 12-15 cookies.  Note: When the cookies have cooled, store them in a zip top bag or air tight storage container to keep them from getting stale.

Enjoy feeling clever when you've bewitched your friends with these ;)

Marshmallow Shortbread!

So one night this week I wanted a treat, but didn't want to go out to the store to buy one.  I had enough sugar, flour, and butter to make something, but didn't know what I could make.  I google searched "what can I make with sugar, flour, and butter?" and found a shortbread cookie recipe (my new recipe for this is near the bottom of this post).  It didn't call for vanilla, and the shortbread that I've made before has called for it, so I looked around my pantry in search for a flavor I could mix in.  I found a bag of mini marshmallows and thought, hmm clever, why not try it? 

The recipe says to mix the butter and the sugar together well before adding in the flour, so I added in melted marshmallows after I creamed the butter and sugar.  I took about 1/3 of a cup of mini marshmallows and put them in a single layer on a plate.  I microwaved them for about 20 seconds and then spooned them into the butter/sugar mixture.  Note: I didn't spray my plate with non-stick spray before using it, but I think that would have helped in getting the sticky mallows off of the plate after they'd been nuked.

 Next I added in the flour-I added in a little extra to compensate for the extra moister from the mallows, and my shortbread came out a little thick-so I recommend just putting in the cup of flour and making sure that you have 8 full tablespoons of butter to avoid this. 

The recipe that I was going off of told me to cut the dough into shapes, but I wanted to put it in an 8 inch round pan in stead.  I packed my dough into the pan and pushed down the edges of the dough. 

Then I baked this in a hot oven at 275 degrees for about 24 minutes-mine came out a little too crunchy for me so I would try 18-20 minutes.  You want it just turning light brown.

When my shortbread was done baking I put some mini marshmallows on top to give a clue of what's inside.  I did a little pattern on mine, but I wish I would have just put them all over the bread to give it a more even crust-might want to try that. Put the marshmallows on the hot shortbread, and then place a heat safe plate on top of the pan to help the marshmallows melt on to the surface.

Here's my recipe for Marshmallow Shortbread:

-8 full Tablespoons of butter (or a 1/2 of a cup)
-1/2 cup of white sugar (the finer the better)
-1 cup of white flour
-1 cup of mini marshmallows (1/3 cup for in the shortbread, and the rest for the crust)
-Have some cooking spray or something like it available

Cream together the butter and the sugar.  Spray a small plate with a light coating of cooking spray.  Melt 1/3 cup of mini marshmallows on the plate in a single layer in the microwave for 20 seconds.  Spoon the marshmallows into the sugar/butter and thoroughly mix together.  Add in about a 1/4 of a cup of a flour, mix well, and then keep adding until you've put a cup in.

Pack the dough in a 8 inch round pan and bake at 275 for 18-20 minutes (until just light brown).  To make a marshmallow crust take rest of the mini mallows and place on top of the hot surface then cover with a plate for a minute or two.

That's it!  I hope you like it :)