Mint Coffee Fudge Brownies
Tomorrow my best work-friend is leaving. To celebrate her last day at the job, I decided to bake her a treat using whatever I had in the house. Fortunately, I work at keeping a stack of various chocolate chips. This was inspired by the super on-sale "winter mint chocolate" chips I bought in bulk and a lack of enough butter for cookies.
The recipe is originally a "Red Wine Chocolate Fudge Brownies." (found on Butter Me Up Brooklyn). A friend shared a buzzfeed article about recipes you can make with your leftover red wine. However, "leftover" wine is a foreign concept to me. Therefore, I substituted coffee for wine and added the mint chocolate chips. The brownies, while delicious, are not terribly sweet. This should be an easy "fix" if you wanted. One day I might try to make the recipe as called for and experiment with a few different wines.
Until then, here is the recipe I used:
For the brownies:
4-5 ounces mint chocolate chips
1/2 cup (113 grams) butter, cut into pieces
1/4 cup (60 ml) coffee
2 eggs (substitute)
1/2 cup (100 grams) light brown sugar
1/4 cup (53 grams) sugar
1/2 teaspoon (2.5 ml) vanilla
1/2 cup (62 grams) flour
1/4 + cup (25 grams) unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon (2 grams) salt
the rest of the bag of mint and chocolate chips
Coffee Cinnamon Chocolate Chip Cookies
Amendment: The day after when the cookies cooled, they were much better! I sent them with my brother to a clambake where everyone raved about them!
As I waited up to pick up my brother and sister-in-law from the train station at 2am, I thought now might be the perfect time to try this coffee-chocolate cookie recipe someone gave me. However, because it was late (and let's face it, I'm lazy) I decided to use whatever was in the house instead of following this brand new recipe as written. Here is a copy of the original recipe from "The Costco Connection" because apparently that exists and I know someone who reads it...
In round one of my attempt, I only used 2 instead of 3 sticks of butter, because I would like not to have a heart-attack before the age of 50. I also didn't have instant coffee of any kind, so instead used very concentrated actual coffee. My cookies ended up extremely watery. This might have been avoided if the lid of the coffee pot didn't fall off into the batter and I actually only added 3 Tbsp instead of the entire pot. I also had granulated sugar instead of confectioners' sugar which messed up the texture. In short, round one did not go so well.
Triple Chocolate Fudge Cookies
At work for the holiday season, we had a "Secret Santa" gift exchange. I mentioned that I liked baking and loved chocolate so the greatest gift giver in the world delivered a literal box-load of chocolate. Included in the box was a mason jar of chocolate and instructions for making the triple fudge cookies. Below are pictures of the process of making them.
Strawberry - Raspberry Yogurt Muffins
Today is my roommate's birthday. Yes, the roommate who is too health-conscious to buy normal flour or dark brown sugar. So I thought she would prefer birthday muffins to birthday cupcakes. I went on to the ever reliable pinterest and searched "healthy muffin recipes" and found one that even I might enjoy.
I found the recipe for "Raspberry Yogurt Muffins" on This Mama Cooks. However, the grocery store did not have a large container of raspberry Greek yogurt so I substituted it with Strawberry Greek Yogurt. And of course I used whole wheat flour instead of all purpose flour (thanks again, Birthday Girl!) and egg substitute for the egg.
The muffins were a hit! Lots of raspberries and flavors. However, they were not as sweet as I had hoped and definitely tasted "healthy." But I think it would have tasted less "natural" if I used normal - I mean all-purpose flour. Overall, I'd definitely recommend the recipe!
For the muffins:
1 3/4 cups of flour
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 egg (substitute)
1/3 cup of canola oil
6 oz of strawberry Greek yogurt
1 cup of frozen raspberries
The sweetest way to procrastinate. ©
Happy Day Cake
For my friend's birthday, I attempted to make a yellow cake and decorate it with M&M's since I did not have actual decoration supplies. If you have read any of my other posts or know me as a person, you might have noticed I tend to be slightly incompetent at this (see Coffee Cinnamon Chocolate Chip Cookies). So there were a couple of things that did not go as plan.
(1) Although this was intended to be a yellow cake, it ended up being more of a sun-tanned cake. Instead using normal bleached flour, my roommate insists on buying whole wheat flour which is darker in color and more... "healthy" in taste. Also, we ran out of granulated sugar half way through the baking process and I had to substitute light brown sugar for some of it. (The light in the brown sugar is also due to my roommate's either ignorance of good baking or desire to be healthier. But let's be honest, if you're not eating cake to be healthy. Save that for your meals.) Regardless, the recipe courtesy of Sally's Baking Addiction is literally the best yellow cake I have ever tasted and not even my sub-ins could mess it up. (One change that I think actually enhanced the taste is I used half a cup of skim milk and half a cup of half and half instead the instructed 1 cup of whole milk.)
(2) Let me preface this creative interpretation of the cake with a short story. For a summer I worked at an ice cream shop that also sold ice cream cakes. I decorated one cake and then was promptly banned from every decorating any more. This picture below should explain why. In my defense, in addition to not having the appropriate frosting for decoration, the store also did not have normal sized M&M's. Unfortunately the MEGA ones did not fit well on the cake.
Recipe for Yellow Cake:
2 large eggs (or the equivalent egg substitute)
2 and 1/4 cups of flour (or whole-wheat flour)
2 and 1/2 of teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon of salt
3/4 cup of butter
1 and 1/3 cups of granulated sugar (or light brown)
3 teaspoons of vanilla extract
1 cup of whole milk (or 1/2 skim and 1/2 half & half)
1 bag of MEGA M&M's (they do have 3x the chocolate)
Cake Cookies!
Reese's Pieces Brownies!
After my bar crawl was unexpectedly cancelled, I decided to indulge in another one of my vices. So I baked brownies instead of day drinking. I don't really have a "go to" brownie recipe so I just googled one and this is what I found.
Ingredients:
- 1/2 cup of butter
- 1 cup of white sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
The adjustments I made:
- 1 egg instead of 2 because I prefer fudgey to cakey brownies
- ~1/2 cup of unsweetened cocoa powder because I love dark chocolate
- a little bit of coffee (I didn't measure) just to make the brownies richer tasting
and bring out the chocolate flavor - Reese's Pieces on top because, well why not?
- wheat flour instead of all-purpose, because my roommate did the shopping this week
(note: This worked for the brownies, but is not a good substitute for most baked goods. It can overpower the other flavors.)
The picture is there. As you can see my roommates seemed to enjoy them (even before I got a picture)!
In an attempt to make my cookies solid, I then overcorrected by adding more flour and sugar. Definitely, an improvement but it mostly left the cookies kind of bland. For rounds 3 and 4, I tried adding more cinnamon, baking coco and vanilla. (I mean seriously... what kind of cookie doesn't have vanilla? Or eggs for that matter?)
Chocolate Chip Cookie Muffins and Cookie Cake!
This is what happens when your roommate says, "Don't buy anything. I have everything we need!" but actually means "I have everything but a cookie sheet." You have to get creative...
Flourless Brownies
I had a couple of days off and some leftover cake cookies, so naturally I decided to make brownies with cake cookie crumbs. Unfortunately, I forgot that I used the last of my flour on the cake cookies and had to find a flourless brownie recipe. Thanks to Google I found a manageable recipe on Life Made Simple. To incorporate the cookies, I broiled them so they got crunchy and then crumbled them with a spoon. I mixed the crumbs into the batter and then some one top. In addition to the cookies and the recipe below I added more cocoa powder instead of semisweet chocolate and some wine, because... why not?
For the brownies:
6 tbsp. of unsalted butter
3/4 cup of granulated sugar
2 eggs
8 oz. of cocoa powder
1/4 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
Round two
Mixed Berry Crisp
I have never been a fan of fruit, so I thought the best way to eat some would be to douse it in sugar! My mother gave me a recipe for a blueberry crisp. Below is the recipe she gave me.
However, because she is a mother she forgot that not
everyone knows what to do with just a list of ingredients.
After texting her, I learned that some of the cinnamon
goes on the fruit and then everything else is supposed
to be combined together in a food processor.
I also discovered that if you do not have a food processor,
a blender does *not* work as a substitute. Instead a fork
works well to combine the butter and everything else.
To make the fruit less healthy/more enjoyable,
I added a teaspoon of vanilla, two teaspoons of white sugar.
Here's how it turned out! Delicious!
Overall, this recipe was kind of a bust. Sure, I played my part in messing it up, I think the take away is that a coffee cookie is better in theory than in reality. Also, baking with any liquid is better with brownies or cakes. My advice to my followers (aka the two friends who are actually taking the time to read this) if you are brave enough to try this recipe, you might want to follow the actual recipe that was written by someone who was legitimate enough to be published 1) by someone other than themselves 2) on paper.
We had a rare snow day, so instead of being productive I made cake cookies from scratch. Because they were not from a box, they are basically sugar cookies but I added more butter and sprinkles.
I added some mint chips. Noticing a pattern yet?
Needs improvement.
Cinnamon Chip Muffins
Over the long weekend, while an old friend was visiting I randomly made muffins at 10 o'clock at night. Because I couldn't have chocolate (Thanks, Lent) I attempted a new muffin idea and replaced the chocolate chips with cinnamon chips. They are surprisingly good!
I found the easiest recipe (courtesy of All Recipes) and simply substituted chocolate chips with cinnamon chips and added a "dash" (or three) of ground cinnamon to the batter. Unfortunately, I had yet to fix the problems from above as well, so I still used whole wheat flour and light brown sugar courtesy of my roommate.
Recipe for Muffins:
2 cups of flour (or whole-wheat flour)
1/2 cup of white sugar (or light brown sugar)
3 teaspoons of baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup of milk
1/3 cup of vegetable oil (or a mix of canola and melted butter)
1 egg
3/4 cup of cinnamon chips
3 tables of white sugar
2 tablespoons of brown sugar
Banana Baking
HAP
PY day
Banana Muffins!
My mother makes the best banana nut muffins. So much so that they were the inspiration for this name in a way. When my younger sister was little she would call these "Annie Bananie muffins" and the name stuck. I think she got the recipe from a book, but she uses less sugar and more bananas make these muffins bananie and not too sweet. The trick is making sure the bananas are overripe - like disgustingly black looking. That's why I don't mind not using the bananas I buy because as soon as they start browning I put them in freezer and use them to bake!
My mom's recipe:
- 1 1/2 cups flour
- 1 t salt
- 1T baking powder
- 1/2 t baking soda
- 1/2 c. sugar
- 3/4 c. of uncooked oatmeal
- 3 over ripe bananas
- 1/3 c vegetable oil
- 2 eggs
- 1/4 c. milk
- 1/2 c. chopped nuts
Because this recipe is delicious all on its own I made very few changes. I didn't have any nuts, so the first batch is just plain. The second round I added 1/3 cup of peanut butter (you couldn't really taste it) and 1/2 cup of chocolate chips. Next time I might try putting in peanut butter chips instead of the peanut butter. Anyway it's hard to mess these up!
Mint Coffee Fudge Brownies
Tomorrow my best work-friend is leaving. To celebrate her last day at the job, I decided to bake her a treat using whatever I had in the house. Fortunately, I work at keeping a stack of various chocolate chips. This was inspired by the super on-sale "winter mint chocolate" chips I bought in bulk and a lack of enough butter for cookies.
The recipe is originally a "Red Wine Chocolate Fudge Brownies." (found on Butter Me Up Brooklyn). A friend shared a buzzfeed article about recipes you can make with your leftover red wine. However, "leftover" wine is a foreign concept to me. Therefore, I substituted coffee for wine and added the mint chocolate chips. The brownies, while delicious, are not terribly sweet. This should be an easy "fix" if you wanted. One day I might try to make the recipe as called for and experiment with a few different wines.
Until then, here is the recipe I used:
For the brownies:
4-5 ounces mint chocolate chips
1/2 cup (113 grams) butter, cut into pieces
1/4 cup (60 ml) coffee
2 eggs (substitute)
1/2 cup (100 grams) light brown sugar
1/4 cup (53 grams) sugar
1/2 teaspoon (2.5 ml) vanilla
1/2 cup (62 grams) flour
1/4 + cup (25 grams) unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon (2 grams) salt
the rest of the bag of mint and chocolate chips
Round one.
Mint Brownies
The other day, my parents visited me. Like all good parents, my dad brought me leftover alcohol and told me to use it in my baking. I found a brownie recipe online and added some Creme de Menthe for good measure. Here are the ingredients (the recipe's in blue and my adjustments in green).
Ingredients:
- 3/4 cup of Cocoa (I added a little bit more)
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 2/3 cup of margarine
- 1/2 cup boiling water
- 2 cups granulated sugar
- 2 eggs (I used 1 egg equivalent of egg whites)
- 1-1/3 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 bag of chocolate chips
- 1/4 cup of Creme de Menthe
Then bake them at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. It might have been because I used 1 less egg and more cocoa, but the brownies surprisingly didn't end up watery. If they do (I've had that happen) just bake them a little longer. Overall, I enjoyed the brownies and got a lot of complements, but I think they were a little off. I have still yet to find a good recipe for fudgey brownies.
website for the recipe: https://www.hersheys.com/recipes/en-us/recipes/brownies-bars/4315/hersheys-ultimate-chocolate-brownies
UPDATE: I recently made boxed brownies and substituted the creme de menthe for the water and it worked brilliantly!