Cocoa Caramel Swirl Brownies - Recipe

I whipped these up the morning before a Superbowl party. I adapted them from the cocoa brownies recipe in Wild About Brownies which I chose simply because I had cocoa on hand. :o)



They turned out sticky and fudgey, cutting was an adventure, I ended up removing them from the pan a cutting board and bringing the knife straight down to cut them since dragging the knife through just made them crumbley due to the caramel swirls. :o)

Cocoa Caramel Swirl Brownies
Adapted from Wild About Brownies

3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup caramel liqueur (I used Baileys)
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon almond extract (optional)
About 2 tablespoons caramel sauce

1. Preheat oven to 350. Grease the bottom and sides of an 8 inch square baking pan. Line bottom with parchment paper, letting paper slightly hang over two edges (good for lifting brownies out to cut).
2. In a small bowl combine flour, baking powder and salt.
   
3. In another bowl mix together the sugar, eggs, oil and caramel liqueur with an electric mixer.
4. Stir in the cocoa and extracts.
5. Stir in the flour mixture until just combined.
6. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and spread evenly. Distribute the two tablespoons of caramel sauce over top of the brownies and use a knife to draw in all sorts of fun swirls.
7. Bake for 30 - 35 minutes or until a cake tester inserted into the brownie portion comes out almost clean.
8. Cool in the pan on a wire rack then remove using parchment paper. Easiest to place on a large cutting board and use the knife to cut straight down to cut the brownies into squares.
9. Store in an airtight container at room temp.

Chocolate Frangelico Truffles

I made these as a birthday gift for a friend, that sadly the weather prevented me from getting to. :o( But I've deemed them a success anyway.



I followed this recipe and while they were delicious, I'm not sure what the vanilla bean in the cream or espresso powder really did for them... The same sort of goes for the Frangelico...I can't say I tasted it but I was a little afraid to add more and make the ganache too thin. Maybe I would miss the flavors that vanilla bean and espresso lend if I didn't include them...but maybe I wouldn't! So who knows!

To amp up the hazelnut flavor I rolled them in crushed hazelnuts.



Pretty tasty, then packaged them in a pink to go container. :o)

My first molded chocolates!

For Christmas my mom got me a petit fours pan that came with instructions on how to make chocolate raspberry truffles. I'd been watching chocolate weekend on food network and was inspired to give them a try.

I didn't want to spend money on fancy ingredients, since it was very possible these could fail completely. So I just got some Wilton milk chocolate melts and decided to give it a go.

I used these instructions for the method and used this recipe for the ganache that I modified. I skipped simmering the cream with the vanilla bean and the espresso power and just went ahead and melted the chocolate and cream together, then stirred in a ton of caramel sauce for a chocolate caramel ganache center. :oD



Since I misplaced the instructions that came with the pan I did my best too google how to prepare a metal pan which is where I made my first mistake. I sprayed it with cooking spray which was just silly, don't do that.

So they didn't quite want to unmold (I had to use a fondue fork to coax them out) and once they did they were dull and pitted from the spray...duh. But they all did come out they were tasty! In the end I powdered them with cocoa powder to hide their imperfections. :o)



Takeaways are that while these were good, they were giant chocolates and I will stick to petit fours for this pan...which I'll have to google... Thanks for looking!

Frozen Treats

I know it's February and it's been 1 degree out (literally...), but Dave got me an ice cream maker for Christmas. I plan to embark on numerous, exciting ice cream adventures, hence the Ice Cream Adventures set in Flickr.

I've made frozen desserts before without an ice cream maker, so it can be done, but it's painstaking, as chronicled in my successes with triple berry sorbet and ginger ice cream.

First I tried some honey vanilla frozen yogurt.



It was semi-successful. Dave seems to want "healthy" desserts so I tried making it with less sugar. Which I know now is important to the freezing process. This one was a little too frozen... At the end I swirled in some honey so it was honey vanilla frozen yogurt! :oD A good idea, but should of made it with all the sugar. ;o) It's shown here with some caramel sauce drizzled over it

For Sunday dinner one night with my fam, my mom decided to have pumpkin pie, so I made this buttered pecan ice cream to go with it. :oD



I didn't know it would take almost 3 times as long as the frozen yogurt to simmer and whatnot so it was more like soft serve than ice cream, but here it is in its fully frozen state. Again, it was a bit hard to scoop but it tasted AMAZING. It was my first time using a real vanilla bean for anything and it smelled heavenly while cooking.

Look at the sexy vanilla seeds, it's delicious.



Keep your eye on the flickr set for more to come!

Sexy Cinnamon Rolls

Plus they're ridiculously easy, smell amazing, and the payoff is huge...you have FRESH CINNAMON ROLLS! Incredible. :o)



I was feeling cinnamon rolls, and I had this recipe for cinnamon rolls tagged for awhile, but I needed something quick and dirty. I had some puff pastry hanging out in my freezer and a quick search turned up this recipe.

I wasn't sure what adding the pecans on top of the butter/cinnamon in the bottom of the cups would do...so I spread them inside the roll instead of raisins and rolled them up in there.

They were delicious and we ate them all week long. We'd heat them up in the toaster oven for a minute or two to warm them. Make them, they're amazing.

Jumping on the Ebelskiver bandwagon

Like my last post, I'm making use of another Christmas gift.

I got an Ebelskiver pan! :o) Also got some mix and recipe book to go with it.

I was a little disheartened by the recipes in the book since it advises they should all be served immediately, and I really wanted to be able to take some of these to parties and whatnot. But after making them a few times I believe they'll also travel well, as long as it's the same day or very next day. :o)

I started with the basic recipe then slightly branched out, there will be much more Ebelskiving to come! Here are a few so far!

1) Original Ebelskivers with strawberry jam filling - the first try


2) Original Ebelskivers with peach filling - practicing my Ebelskiver flipping skills


See peachy filling?



3) French toast Ebelskivers with peach jam filling - getting fancy, my own creation
Use the Ebelskiver mix and tossed in some vanilla extract and a bunch of cinnamon. Instantly tastier, then dusted with powdered sugar



See peachy filling? And cinnamon? mmmmm....



They do take a little longer to make and make more dishes to clean since you have to make the batter separately then whip the egg whites, but they're great for weekend breakfast. When you're making them, they cook fast! Be careful not to let them burn! Flipping with the skewers is easier than I thought, I can only get seem to get them flipped 3/4 of the way but I just stuff it back in the little Ebelskiver well and they come out pretty good, and the filling stays enclosed. Good stuff!

Oreo Cheesecake Cupcakes

For Christmas I received 500 Cupcakes. This is one down, 499 to go!



I made these for dessert for one of our girls nights. Plus a birthday dinner the next night and brought some to share with my family for Sunday dinner. :oD

The recipe in 500 Cupcakes is for any standard fruit topped cheesecake with graham cracker crust, but I modified. That's a whole Oreo cookie popped in the bottom of the wrapper for the crust. :oD I wish I could say it was my idea, but I stole it from a friend. It is a good idea, cuts down on baking time when you don't have to mix a crust and press it in the bottom of 24 little cupcakes!



Centers always sink a bit on cheesecakes I think, is that just part of baking a cheesecake? Anyway, I topped these with more crumbled Oreo cookie crumbs and the cheesecake was delicious.

They were a success all around! I'll definitely make them again.