brownie

Peppermint Brownie Cookies

December 9, 2016

I feel like there are two kinds of people in this world: those that love the brownie edge, and those that love the brownie center. Guess which one I am. I’m team brownie edge all the way. I love the crunchy, caramelized corners and sides of the brownie. Sometimes when I make a batch of brownies, I will cut off the scraggly edges and tell myself I am just making them look prettier and more uniform. But if I am being honest with myself, it’s so that I can eat all the edges.

And that is what I love about these cookies. It is 90% brownie edge!

What I also love about these cookies is how easy they were to make! It literally took minutes to mix everything together and pop in the oven. In just about 30 minutes I had warm, fresh peppermint brownie cookies.

These cookies start with, what else, a bag of brownie mix! To that I mixed in some melted butter and one egg. I did not follow the recipe on the back of the box.

Once it’s all mixed together, its pretty thick. Not at all like a brownie batter but (shockingly) more like a cookie dough.

For that peppermint flavor, I mixed in some Andies peppermint chunks because that’s what I found at the grocery store. But if you can get your hands on some peppermint chocolate chips or even other peppermint candy, you can add those in instead.

Another great thing about these cookies is that don’t take nearly as long to bake as a normal batch of cookies. Within a matter of minutes, the chocolate dough had spread out and crisped up around the edges, but remained a bit soft in the center.

For the brownie edge love, like me, these cookies are perfect. The first bite it all crunch. But the center is super soft.

However, for those of you who love the soft gooey center of the brownie and are not willing to give that up. Guess what! You can pretty much make the exact same recipe in brownie form! Just follow the recipe on the back of the box and add the water and oil as necessary.

I can’t alienate half (maybe more) of the brownie loving population. Everyone deserves a delicious bite of chocolate and peppermint. Especially during the holidays.

[amd-yrecipe-recipe:105]

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Chubby Hubby Brookies

November 9, 2016

Okay, I bet you are asking yourself a couple questions right now. 1) What is a brookie?, and 2) What makes it a Chubby Hubby Brookie?

Both great questions. Let me inform you.

A brookie is a brownie-cookie. In this case, it’s a brownie that is mixed with a cookie dough and baked in a bar form. In some cases it can be brownie mix baked in cookie firm.

A Chubby Hubby brookie is a brownie combined with a peanut butter cookie,and topped with pretzels. Basically all of my favorite foods in one delicious and indulgent bar.

I can’t take credit for the name “Chubby Hubby”, which was coined by the fine folks at Ben and Jerry’s when they created the Chubby Hubby ice cream. Nor can I take credit for having a chubby hubby. My hubby is most certainly not chubby, but I am sure I could get him there if I made these brookies more often.

I started with a layer of peanut butter cookie dough, then topped it with the brownie batter. I would not recommend switching the order of these layers. If you start with the brownie batter, then top with the dough, the dough will just sink to the bottom. I like having the two distinct layers of the cookie and the brownie.
In between the two layers, I popped a couple pretzel pieces, just for some extra crunch! I also added the pretzels to the top of the brookie which get extra crispy in the oven and also add that nice salty bite.

My only gripe about these (and with brownies in general), is that you can’t really dig into them right away! It’s best to let brownies cool completely before cutting them so that they don’t get stuck on your knife. Most of the time I can’t wait that long. It was so hard to have these sitting on the counter, smelling the wafts of sweet chocolate and peanut butter, and not cutting myself off a corner (I am team corner brownie all the way!).

But finally, when I was able to give them a taste, I was in heaven! Like I said before, peanut butter and chocolate AND pretzels is pretty much the all my favorite flavors combined, so these were pretty damn near perfection. They not only had all my favorite flavors, but I loved the mix of textures, too. The peanut butter cookie is crumbly, almost like a crust, and the brownie is soft and fudgy (if that’s even a word). Then, with every bite there’s that little pretzel crunch!

Sounds amazing right? Well, I suggest you make these for your chubby (or not so chubby) hubby immediately!

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[amd-yrecipe-recipe:95]

S’more Brownies

July 20, 2016

Smore-Brownies-title To me, s’mores are the quintessential summer dessert. Sitting around the camp fire, roasting marshmallows is one of those memories that remind me most of Summer. Because of that, I knew I wanted to make something s’mores-related for our 4th of July-firework watching-picnic. Since we wouldn’t actually have access to a camp fire, I had to come up with some other way to serve up s’mores. Then it hit me, s’more brownies!

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These s’more brownies are actually incredibly easy to make. If you follow me on snapchat, you saw that I made these brownies in less than 60 minutes while rushing out the door. All I used were some graham cracker crumbs (and butter), brownie mix, and marshmallows.

First, I mixed the graham cracker crumbs with butter and a hint of sugar, then pressed about 1-2 tbsp into the bottom of a muffin tin. I used the bottom of a sprinkles bottle to help me get an even press.

Then, I mixed together the brownie batter following the instructions on the back of the box. I have to say, this Ghiradelli brownie mix is the best boxed brownie mix I have tried. It is amazing!

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Once the brownie were almost all the way baked, I put a marshmallow on top of each of the brownies and let those bake for about 3 minutes until they became slightly golden brown and puffy.

I had attempted charring the marshmallows under the broiler, but every time they became overly burned. That’s when I settled on the baking method which gets the marshmallows all gooey, then I could just go back over them with a kitchen torch to get them nice and charred.

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To me, the char is the most important part. I love a good roasted marshmallow. Like, I want that sucker on fire! (Actually, the broiler method would have been fine for me, but I know other people don’t like they food that toasted.) It’s that gooey, fire roasted marshmallows are what make this brownie so good.

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First, you’ll bite into the top and sink your teeth into the soft marshmallow, then you’ll get a bite of the rich chocolate brownie. Then at the end, you’ll get that graham cracker crunch. It’s not exactly your fire-side s’more, but it is just as good and definitely brings back all those wonder summer memories.

[amd-yrecipe-recipe:55]

White Chocolate Brownies

April 18, 2014

These sweet little cake-like bars posed a challenge for me. Not in making them. No, they were really easy to make. In what to name them. Can you call something a brownie if its not brown, but it is made with chocolate? Maybe calling it a white chocolate blondie would have been more appropriate.

Making these brownies was far less complicated. And honestly, they came to me on whim. I wanted to make something using the Easter candy I had picked up at CVS when I should have been buying allergy medicine. After scarfing down half a bag of M&Ms, I knew I had to use up the rest.

I adapted a brownie recipe using white chocolate chips instead of milk chocolate, which worked out surprisingly well. I used a bit less butter and sugar since white chocolate has more fat and is more sweet. But whipping them up was rather fool proof. If I were making them any other time of the year, I probably would have left them plain or added normal chocolate chips. But because Easter is around the corner, and like I said, I had the candy, I decided to throw those in for some color.

I was pleasantly surprised how rich the white chocolate flavor actually was. I thought they may just taste like vanilla cake, but the chocolate flavor really stands out and makes these brownies fudgey-er than cake. Which is how a brownie should be, right?

So, tell me. Should I have called these blondies instead?

[yumprint-recipe id=’12’]