R2D2 Brownie Bites

You may or may not remember back when I made the Dalek Cupcakes, I used a brownie pop pan to get the rounded top of the dalek's head. What you don't know, is that I didn't just buy the pan to make daleks. I remember thinking, looking at the pan, that it kind of looked like R2D2. I could just stick some mini kit-kats on the side for the legs, dip it in white chocolate, boom, it's R2.

And I was going to do just that. I even bought a bag of kit-kats to do it, and I never did. I ate the kit-kats and forgot all about it until now. I realized I had nothing planned for Star Wars day, and it hit me that I still had that brownie pop pan that looks like R2D2.

However, the original plans for edible R2 kind of got derailed. It's been raining for the past 3 days here in NJ, and as you can imagine, everything's rather damp. It's for this reason, I think, that my white chocolate refused to behave. Not to be deterred, I decided to use thinned royal icing instead, and while that did the trick (and I kind of prefer it, flavorwise), it wasn't without it's difficulties. It didn't want to stick to the kit-kats (you can still kind of see the chocolate in the picture) and I needed three coats of it to cover the brownies to my satisfaction. Royal icing also needs a lot more time to set set up, so it just took up a lot more time than I had planned for. Maybe I would have been better off with a liquid fondant or something else, but everything ended up working out in the end, so I can't really complain. Still, I recommend using candy melts instead of royal icing.

I was going to share a photo tutorial of how I made them, but there were kind of only three steps. 4 if you count baking the brownies, so it didn't feel necessary

Step 1: bake your brownies in the brownie pop pan. Use your favorite recipe. They only take 15-20 minutes to bake (the sweet spot for mine was 22 minutes, but every oven is different). Cool completely, then chill in the fridge to firm them up a bit. Level them off so they sit flat.

Step 2: attach the kit-kats. Take mini kit-kats, apply a little melted chocolate, and place them on either side of the brownie. Stick in the freezer for a few minutes to set.

Step 3: coat the brownies in melted white chocolate or thinned royal icing. Allow the excess to drip off and place on a waxed paper-covered plate to set. For chocolate, chill in the fridge for about 15 minutes. For royal icing, let dry at room temperature 1-4 hours until firm (may take multiple coats)

Step 4: decorate. I used blue royal icing to mimic R2's design. You can also use decorating icing, or candy melts, whatever you have on hand. I kept it pretty simple, but you can simplify it even more if you want, or go more realistic. R2's very recognizable, so you don't have to be exact.

Oh, I almost forgot about Step 5: nom.

Happy Star Wars Day! May the fourth be with you.

Other Star Wars treats:

BB8 Pizza

Salted Caramel Death Star Popcorn Balls

"Darth" Chocolate Cupcakes with Sith Lord Red Velvet Frosting

The Longest Journey Balance Cupcakes

Hot Chocolate and Chai Tea Cupcakes with Chai Spiced Buttercream

Do you guys know what my favorite video game of all time is? Probably not, because I've never talked about it on the blog (although I have talked about one of its sequels), and I don't think you're psychic. I'm not even sure that you'd be able to guess, as it's pretty old now and a bit on the obscure side.

That game is The Longest Journey. It's one of those old point and click adventure games that used to be all the rage in the 90s where gameplay was focused on puzzle solving rather than killing all the things. In fact, The Longest Journey is best known for one of it's puzzles. All you have to do is mention "the rubber ducky puzzle" and anyone who has played the game will know exactly what you're talking about.

Source

Don't let its cute and innocent appearance fool you. It's an instrument of pure evil

The rubber ducky puzzle is famous for being really ridiculously difficult. I honestly don't know how anyone could solve it without help. It never occurred to me that I had to feed bread to the seagull and fix the water pressure machine in order to open the electrical box across town so I could sneak into the movie theater. (I skipped like 25 steps in that description. I didn't want to spoil all the fun).

Rubber duckies notwithstanding, The Longest Journey amazed me with the most fantastic storytelling, world-building, and character development I've ever seen in a video game. If you don't mind dialogue heavy games (and there is a lot of dialogue) I highly recommend it. Don't let the dated character animations put you off a spectacularly enjoyable game.

Anyway, with the newest installment of The Longest Journey saga, Dreamfall Chapters, almost complete (I don't want it to end, but I also WANT MAH BOOK 5 NOW PLS), I really wanted to make some cupcakes inspired by the franchise. I did consider making rubber ducky cupcakes, but they'd have to be blue and with my food coloring sensitivity, I wasn't about to let the rubber ducky make me sick. He's caused me enough suffering.

The Balance between the parallel worlds of Stark (the world of science. AKA us) and Arcadia (the world of magic. AKA I want to go to there), however, is a consistent theme throughout all three games, and is the driving force behind the events of The Longest Journey (and is in peril again with the dream conspiracy in Dreamfall Chapters), so the Symbol of the Balance is an immediately recognizable representation of the game. When I found some chocolate cookie icing on clearance at the grocery store, I figured I could use that to make some royal icing transfers to decorate with.

Source

Now, I've worked with royal icing twice in my life (and once was just to draw a smiley face on Sherlock Cupcakes), and I've never made royal icing transfers before. However, I have read a lot of cookie decorating blogs (at one point in my life I decided I was going to start decorating cookies. Then I remembered how much I hate roll out dough. But they're still fun to look at), so I figured I knew enough to swing it. And actually, it wasn't that hard. Time consuming? Most definitely. But once it's dry, a royal icing transfer will keep for ages in an airtight container, so it's great for making ahead. The symbol of the balance actually lent itself well to royal icing, as it's mostly made up of fluid lines and not sharp edges. I did have to coax it into place a few times with a toothpick, but from all the cookie decorating blogs I've read, that seems normal.

All you need to do is print out the image you want (in my case, the symbol of the balance), tape it to a cookie sheet or similar flat surface, tape some waxed paper over top. Take your cookie icing in your "outline color" (I used Betty Crocker brand chocolate flavored) and follow the pattern. Let dry for a few hours.

Then I mixed up a small batch of flood consistency white royal icing (I just halved the recipe that comes with the Wilton meringue powder) and fill in all the empty spaces (use a toothpick to get the corners). I ended up doing a reverse image type deal because that was just easier, but either way works. (And if you don't know what "flood consistency" means, check out this post from LilaLoa. I'd try to explain it, but I'd probably just confuse you). Let dry at minimum over night. They take a very long time to dry, and if you try to remove them from the wax paper before they are, they'll be unsalvageable.

Then very carefully and gently remove them from the wax paper. These were thick enough that I had no trouble removing them, but I've seen people remove royal icing transfers using a knife and a sharp corner, so if you're making a delicate design, please refer to someone who actually knows what they're doing.

The Betty Crocker icing worked great (especially since I don't own tiny decorating icing tips, so using the pouch was easier for me) but it did bleed a little into the white. The bleeding itself wasn't that noticeable, but you can seen see in the photos that it makes it look like the chocolate has bloomed, which is not a thing you normally want chocolate to do.

The air bubbles are totally on me, though

There was no food coloring in the icing (I checked the ingredient list), so I didn't expect there to be any bleeding. I'm not sure if I just didn't let it dry long enough before flooding with the white, if it's just a problem with the prepackaged recipe, or if this is the reason it was on clearance. I can't actually seem to find anything about using Betty Crocker cookie icing to make a royal icing transfer, so it might just be that it was never intended for stuff like this and I should have realized that.

So in conclusion: Royal icing transfers are a surprisingly easy, though time consuming, way to make decorations, and you probably shouldn't use the cookie icing you bought on clearance to make them. Moving on...

Cupcakes! It took me a while to figure out exactly what kind of cupcake to make for these, because I wanted something that could represent the Balance flavor wise. I also wanted there to be a visual distinction between the two flavors. I considered doing just vanilla and chocolate, but I wanted it to be two flavors that wouldn't necessarily seem like they went together, so it would be a balanced flavor. Get it?

I also briefly considered making them yam flavored, because that would make Kian happy, but I ultimately decided against it. Mostly because I don't actually like yams.

Source

Kian will never forgive me

I'm not completely sure how I ultimately ended up with chai tea and hot chocolate. It might have had something to do with the fact that it was about 10 degrees out when I made them. (It's 50 degrees out right now. WTF, nature? Pull yourself together) But when you think about it, tea has a reputation of being very cultured and refined, so it could stand for logic (Stark). Hot chocolate is sweet and frivolous, and therefore could stand for chaos (Arcadia). Plus, they're both related, in that they're both hot beverages that you want to drink when it's 10 degrees out and probably add milk to.

Boom. Nailed it.

The cupcake will remember this

So technically, the whole cupcake is tea flavored, because it was easier to steep the tea in the milk than to figure out how to add it after I halved the batter. I started with my very favorite vanilla cupcake recipe, added the tea, and divided the batter in half. To one half, I added a packet of dark hot chocolate mix, and to the other, I added a chai spice mix of cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, allspice, and cloves. The flavors meld together well, but are still distinctive enough that you can taste the difference between the two halves. And what bridges the two halves? Storytime, of course.

Storytime is definitely the prettiest location in Dreamfall Chapers. Although Propast is still my favorite

Just kidding. I wouldn't know how to add a Storytime element to the cupcakes. Gooey dream-filled center? (Because Storytime is the world of dreams and dreams flow between the two worlds bridging the divide.)

Maybe the frosting? But no, the frosting is kind of more like the House of all Worlds. It touches both halves, it's part of the cupcake, but it's still separate from the actual cake part.

Whoa, this is getting deep.

The frosting is just my basic buttercream with some chai spices. I would have loved to do some whipped cream on top of these cupcakes, but I needed something sturdy for the RI transfers, so I went with my old standby. And it's still delicious.

So the moral of the story is that awesome video games deserve awesome cupcakes. And if you're not playing Dreamfall Chapters, you should go do that immediately. Or play The Longest Journey. Or Dreamfall: The Longest Journey (which is the middle game of the series and my least favorite. But still great, storywise). Because if you haven't played any of them, then you haven't earned these awesome cupcakes. Also, it means that you've never met Crow, who is basically just the best ever, and I feel sorry for you.

I kind of want to feed Crow all the cupcakes.

ILU Crow

Hot Chocolate and Chai Tea Cupcakes
Yield: 24 cupcakes

Ingredients
For the Chai Spice Mix:
2 tsp. cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp. ginger
1/2 tsp. cardamom
1/2 tsp. cloves
1/2 tsp. allspice

For the cupcakes:
2/3 cup milk
3 black tea bags
2 1/2 cups cake flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/4 cup sugar
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
3 eggs
8 oz. sour cream

1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 packet dark hot chocolate
1 tbsp.  Chai Spice mix

For the frosting:
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup solid white vegetable shortening (Crisco)
3 1/2 cups powdered sugar
2 tbsp. milk
Remaining Chai Spice Mix (2 tsp.)
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
Pinch salt

Directions
In a small bowl, mix together the Chai Spice Mix ingredients. Set aside. In a small saucepan over low heat, bring the milk to a simmer. Add the tea bags and remove from heat. Allow to steep until the milk has cooled to room temperature. Remove and discard the tea bags.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line 2 muffin tins with 24 cupcake liners. In a medium mixing bowl, mix together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and sale. Set aside. In the bowl of a stand mixer, or in a large mixing bowl with electric beaters, beat the butter and sugar together at medium speed until fluffy. Add the eggs, beating well after each addition. Add the vanilla and sour cream, and mix until fully combined. Mix in the milk and then the other half of the flour mixture. Beat until smooth, scraping down the sides of the bowl as necessary.

Divide the batter equally between two bowls. In one bowl, stir in the packet of hot chocolate mix. In the other bowl, stir in 1 tbsp. of chai spice mix. Divide each batter equally between the 24 baking cups. Bake 15-17 minutes, until an inserted toothpick comes our clean. Cool completely on wire racks.

For the frosting: With an electric mixer, beat the butter and shortening on medium speed until smooth. Reduce the speed to low and gradually add the powdered sugar. Add the milk, vanilla, and chai spice mix and gradually increase speed to high. Whip on high until smooth and fluffy.

Recipe by Kim

These cupcakes are an essential part of a well Balanced diet.

...

Crow would have appreciated that joke.

Great Grains Crunchy Stuffed French Toast

Happy National French Toast Day!

Did you know that my favorite French toast of all time involves cereal? True story. There's a local catering company with a tiny cafe that only serves lunch and brunch, and they make this Crisp French Toast which is coated in corn flakes. It's the greatest thing ever, all crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside.

This recipe reminded me of that French toast, which made me super excited to try it. Except this French toast is stuffed with bananas and chocolate, so it was almost like it was invented just for me.

This stuffed French toast is a healthier twist on the usual brunch favorite. It's baked and not fried (which is also convenient when serving a crowd), and it's coated in Great Grains Banana Nut Crunch cereal. The cereal not only adds a great crunch, but it's also packed with protein, fiber, and whole grains.

Unfortunately, this French toast didn't quite measure up to my favorite. It was tasty, but my testers all agreed that it was missing something. I think adding some cinnamon and a little extra vanilla could really take it to the next level. Still, nobody was turning down a slice.

(Also, because I am a crazy person, I used fresh baked bread. I had literally baked it that morning. That probably contributed to the problem, since stale bread soaks up liquid better. So, you know, use old bread.)

Great Grains Crunchy Stuffed French Toast
Yield: 4 servings

Ingredients
3 eggs
1 cup fat free milk
1 1/2 tsp. sugar
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1/4 tsp. sale
2 cups Great Grains Banana Nut Crunch
8 slices challah bread, 1/2 inch thick
2 oz. bittersweet baking chocolate, finely chopped
1 large banana, sliced
2 cups sliced strawberries

Directions
Preheat the oven to 350°F.

Beat eggs, milk, sugar, vanilla, and salt in a large shallow dish with wire whisk until well blended; set aside. Place cereal in resealable plastic bag; seal bag. Crush cereal with rolling pin. Dip both sides of the bread slices in egg mixture; place on clean work surface. Sprinkle evenly with chocolate; top with bananas. Dip both sides of remaining 4 bread slices in remaining egg mixture; place over bananas to make four sandwiches. Press together gently. Coat both sides of sandwiches with cereal crumbs; press crumbs firmly into sandwiches to secure.

Place on greased baking sheet.

Bake 20 to 25 min. or until lightly browned. Cut diagonally in half. Serve with the strawberries.

Tips and Suggestions
Substitute: Prepare as directed, using semi-sweet baking chocolate
http://postfoods.com/recipes/crunchy-stuffed-french-toast/?alttemplate=greatgrainsrecipe&brands=1171

*Disclaimer: I was provided with free samples of Great Grains cereal in order to feature this recipe. I received no further compensation. All opinions are, as always, my own.*

Orphan Black Forest Cupcakes

Who's excited for the season premiere of Orphan Black tonight?

Memememememememe!

If you guys haven't heard of Orphan Black before-- do you live under a rock or something? It's the sci fi thriller about the clones, starring the absolutely redonk acting talent of Tatiana Maslany. Seriously, every time I see that woman, I always have this brief moment of wondering which one she is, and then I remember she's not actually cloned. There's only one of her. Or so they tell me. I'm not completely sure I believe it.

Clone dance party!

And there are boy clones now, which means double the clone-y goodness.

I've had the idea of doing Black Forest cupcakes for Orphan Black for a while now, because the name just works (Orphan Black, Black Forest, Orphan Black Forest), and because cupcakes are kind of like clones of each other.

I totally just blew your mind, right?

Cosima and Delphine think it's a scientific breakthrough.

Just making Black Forest cupcakes wasn't enough, though. I needed to decorate the cupcakes somehow, but I couldn't think of any sort of recognizable symbol from the show, except for Tatiana's face and that's not something I felt I could put on a cupcake.

So I went a bit... deeper.

Cloned DNA. Obvi. (I've decided the pink ones are the Leda clones and the orange ones are the Castor clones)

Putting DNA on the cupcakes was really simple. (Excuse me while I giggle to myself) (Shut up, that was totally funny) You just take two strands from Pull 'n Peel Twizzlers (I used fruit punch flavored, which is why they're different colors, but any kind works), and weave them into a double helix shape. Then take a tube of decorating icing from the grocery store and use it to draw the base pairs.

I was originally going to create base pairs out of Mike 'n Ikes, but they were too fat, so I raided my supplies to find a tube of writing icing. I only had purple, but it worked. Helena's probably disappointed there's not more candy though.

She's a fan of sugar.

The cupcakes themselves are super simple, just chocolate cupcakes filled with cherry pie filling and topped with whipped cream. I decorated a few a little more traditionally with a maraschino cherry and the crumbled up cake middles mostly because I ran out of writing icing.

Don't forget to share with your sestras

Black Forest Cupcakes

Yield: 2 dozen cupcakes

Ingredients

8 oz. unsweetened baking chocolate, chopped

1 cup usalted butter

3 eggs

1½ cups sugar

¾ cup sour cream
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1½ cups flour
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking powder

½ tsp. baking soda
Cherry pie filling (I used about half of a 20 oz. can)
1½ cups whipping cream
3 tbsp. powdered sugar
Maraschino cherries, to decorate
Optional decorations: Pull 'n Peel Twizzlers, writing icing

Directions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. In a small saucepan over low heat, melt the chocolate and the butter. Remove from heat and allow to cool to room temperature.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk the eggs and sugar together until the sugar is completely dissolved. Mix in the sour cream and vanilla extract. Add the cooled chocolate and mix until completely combined. Fold in the dry ingredients

Line a cupcake tin with paper liners, and fill about 2/3 of the way full with batter. Bake about 18-20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Cool completely on wire racks.

Use a cupcake corer or a sharp paring knife to core the cupcakes and fill them with cherry pie filling.

In a large bowl with electric beaters, beat the cream and the powdered sugar until stiff peaks form. Use to frost the cooled cupcake. Top with a maraschino cherries and crumbs from the discarded middles, if desired.

Recipe by Kim

Things you may need (affiliate links):

The (cheese)cake is a lie: Cheesecake Stuffed Portal Cake

My brother always complains that I turned him into a cake snob. He can't help but compare any cake he eats to cake that I make, and usually finds it lacking. (Thankfully, that was not the case with his wedding cake) And heaven forbid you give that man box cake. He's so used to eating my cakes that he can immediately spot the too-sweet and artificial taste.

For his birthday I always ask him what kind of cake he wants, and he always answers chocolate. Every year. That boy loves his chocolate cake.

Chocolate cake is a simple enough request, so I kind of had to go and complicate it. See, my entire family loves cheesecake, but I never make it because I don't like it. (I have a complicated relationship with cream cheese. Cream cheese plus savory equals awesome. Cream cheese plus sweet equals gag) I thought I'd do something special this year and make him a cheesecake. I even hunted up a recipe from Junior's in Brooklyn (his fave) for a devil's food cheesecake that had a layer of cheesecake in the middle of layers of devil's food cake and chocolate fudge frosting.

I didn't use Junior's recipe for the cake or frosting, though. I used my favorite devil's food recipe instead (of course, I realized after I took the cake out of the oven that I accidentally used baking powder instead of baking soda, so the layers were pretty thin and dense). I also, umm, I sort of took a shortcut with the frosting, because I'm a terrible person and cheesecake is hard and I didn't want to wash more bowls and don't judge me.

To try and mask the flavor of shortcut frosting (and to cover the fact that I'm not good at frosting cakes), I decided to decorate the cake with crumbs-- I reserved a little batter and baked it separately, then I toasted the crumbs. It was at that moment I realized that with a little whipped cream (which I had), some maraschino cherries (which I had), and a white candle (which I didn't have, but then had to run to the store last minute and so could buy one), I could totally make it into a Portal cake.

For those of you who don't know, Portal is a video game where the main character, Chell, participates in a series of tests (the puzzles the player has to solve) and is promised cake at the conclusion of the experiment. As the game progresses, it gets weirder and darker and you find out that the cake is, of course, a lie.

Okay, so I went a little crazy on the whipped cream. Oops

The "official" version of the cake is decorated with chocolate shards and uses a tall, thin candle. I covered mine with cake crumbs and, since it was kind of a last minute decision, could not find a tall, thin candle, so I just used a taper. You can still totally tell what it's supposed to be. Right?

How did it taste? Well, I'm not the best judge on that. It could be the world's best cheesecake, and I'd still be like, meh. How about we let the birthday boy weigh in?

Thumbs up!

Cheesecake Stuffed Portal Cake

Yield: 12-16 servings

Ingredients

For the cheesecake:

3 (8 oz.) packages of cream cheese, at room temperature

1⅓ cups sugar, divided

3 tbsp. cornstarch

1 tbsp. vanilla extract

2 extra large eggs

⅔ cup heavy cream

To assemble:

1 recipe devil's food cake

Chocolate frosting

Toasted cake crumbs or chocolate sprinkles

Whipped cream

8 maraschino cherries

1 tall white candle

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Generously grease a 9 inch springform pan, and wrap the outside with aluminum foil.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, or in a large mixing bowl with electric beaters, beat 1 (8 oz.) pacakge of cream cheese with ⅓ cup sugar and cornstarch on low speed until creamy. Add the remaining cream cheese, one package at a time, scraping down the bowl after each. Increase the speed to medium and add the remaining sugar and vanilla. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add in the cream and beat until just incorporated. Do not over mix.

Gently spread the batter into the spingform pan. Place the pan in a large, rimmed pan (I used a foil roasting pan). Add hot water to the large pan until it comes up the sides of the springform pan about 1 inch. Bake until the edges are golden, the top is lightly tanned, and the middle still jiggles slightly when moved, about 1 hour 15 minutes. Remove the springform pan from the water bath and cool on a wire rack and cool for about 2 hours. Cover with plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator until completely chilled, about 4 hours. Freeze until use.

Prepare the devil's food cake according to recipe instructions and bake in two 9 inch round cake pans. Optional-- reserve about 1 cup of batter and bake separately to make cake crumbs cake crumbs. Cool completely.

To assemble the cake: allow the cheesecake to sit at room temperature for 10 minutes. Place one layer of devil's food cake on a cake plate and spread generously with frosting. Remove the cheesecake from the springform pan and place top side down on the frosted cake layer. Spread more frosting on top. Add the second cake layer, and frost the sides and top of the cake with the remaining frosting.

Cover the cake with the reserved cake crumbs or chocolate sprinkles, pressing them lightly into the frosting so they stick. On the top of the cake, use the whipped cream to pipe 8 rosettes evenly around the edge. Place one maraschino cherry in the middle of each rosette. Pipe another rosette in the middle of the cake and place the candle.

Recipe adapted slightly from FoodNetwork.com

Things you may need:

*Disclaimer: This post contains affliate links*

Peanut Butter Banana Brownies

Who watched last week's Arrow? Show of hands.

I got a question to ask you. Is Tatsu secretly Miracle Max? Or maybe his protege or something? Because as Maseo was dragging Ollie's body through the snow to the lonely mountain cabin, the only thing going through my head was:

It just so happens that your friend here is only MOSTLY dead. There's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Mostly dead is still slightly alive.

 And let's face it, Ollie "died" almost the exact way that Sara did, except he was run through with a scimitar instead of a couple arrows, fell off a mountain instead of a building, and was beat up a whole bunch by Ra's al Ghul beforehand. So basically, the only way he could have survived (since it's been confirmed that he wasn't revived by the Lazarus pit), is if he was given one of Miracle Max's pills before he was all dead. Otherwise WHY DON'T I HAVE SARA BACK BECAUSE I LOVE SARA AND LAUREL IS A TERRIBLE CHOICE FOR THE BLACK CANARY. 

*ahem*

I hoped they remembered the chocolate coating to make it go down easier.

These brownies have absolutely nothing to do with Arrow, I just had to get that off of my chest. Of course, I'd totally share these brownies with the denizens of the Arrow cave. Especially my bff Felicity.

I've been working on a recipe for eggless brownies because I only had 4 eggs left, I had two recipes I wanted to make that used two eggs each, and I didn't want to do battle with all the snowmaggedon preppers stocking up on eggs, milk, and bread. And I totally succeeded. The brownies I came up with were fudgy, chocolatey, everything you've ever wanted in a brownie.

These are not those brownies. There are reasons I can't share those brownies with you yet, and they're really good reasons, but I can't tell you those either. (I feel like I'm in that scene from Legally Blonde. Oh she's got an alibi, and it's a really good one. What is it? I can't tell you.)

Luckily for you, I wanted to test the brownies in a larger pan, but was out of unsweetened applesauce (that I had used to replace the eggs), so I decided to mix it up a little bit, using mashed banana instead, and replacing the oil and some of the butter with peanut butter. So these are almost those brownies. Am I forgiven?

 These brownies are still dense and fudgy and chocolatey while adding the delicious flavor combination of peanut butter and banana. They're rich, unexpected, and soooo good. Plus, super simple to make. No chopping up and melting chocolate (always my least favorite part), these use cocoa powder instead. You do need to melt the butter and sugar together, which helps to give it that shiny, crackly crust in the absence of eggs, but if you don't care about the crust, you can always dump the sugar in with the dry ingredients, and melt the butter in the microwave. One bowl, one pan, one whisk, all you need to make these suckers

I'm going to watch Arrow tonight with a plate full of these guys and probably quote The Princess Bride every time Tatsu comes on screen. "Bye bye boys, have fun storming the castle!"

Peanut Butter Banana Brownies

Yield: About 20 brownies

Ingredients

1¼ cup flour

¾ cup unsweetened cocoa powder (I used 1/2 cup regular and 1/4 cup Hershey's Special Dark Cocoa Powder)

½ tsp. salt

¼ tsp. baking soda

¾ cup (1½ sticks) unsalted butter

1¼ cup sugar

⅔ cup mashed, ripe banana

½ cup creamy peanut butter

2 tbsp. milk

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a 9x13 inch baking dish with foil and spray with nonstick cooking spray.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, salt and baking soda. In a small saucepan over low heat, melt the butter. Add the sugar and continue to heat, stirring constantly, until the sugar is dissolved. It will be thick and syrupy.

Add the butter mixture, mashed banana, peanut butter, milk, and vanilla extract to the flour mixture, and stir until smooth. Fold in the chocolate chips, then spread the batter evenly into the prepared pan.

Bake for about 30 minutes, until the brownies are set, and a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Let cool completely before cutting into squares. 

Tip: to keep the chocolate chips from melting into the batter, let it cool for 10-20 minutes before adding them. You can use this time to preheat the oven

Recipe by Kim

 

*Disclaimer: This post includes affiliate links*

Peppermint Hot Cocoa Snowflake Brownies

These brownies make me angry. (That's my secret Cap; I'm always angry. ilu Bruce Banner)

It's not the flavor. They taste really good. It's not the texture-- they're not quite as fudgy in the middle as I would like, but fudgy enough to satisfy me.

What gets me about these brownies is that they're such a tease. Roll back to Christmas Eve. I was making cookie cups to give as presents, but I needed something else. Then I remembered I had this silicone snowflake pan from forever ago. I'd make snowflake cupcakes and add them to the presents!

Except the recipe I used was too light and fluffy and the cakes fell apart when I tried to take them out of the pan. No problem, I was planning on making these brownies to serve for dessert anyway, so I'd just switch up my plans. I baked the rest of the cake batter in a regular pan and whipped up the brownie batter.

I decided to do a test brownie so I wouldn't waste too much batter if they didn't come out. That sucker came out abso-frickin-lutely perfectly.

By that time, I was running late, and I had promised my mother I'd make her green bean salad since she had to work, so I covered the bowl of batter, grabbed the silicone pan and went to my parents' house to finish up there.

Except the next batch I pulled out of the oven fell apart when I tried to take it out of the pan. I ran back home, grabbed the ingredients to make more, and made a second batch. This one I baked for a few minutes longer, and let cool for as long as I could, and they still fell apart. I didn't have time to try again, and ended up feeling a bit miserly as everyone only got three pieces of fudge and two cookie cups for presents.

If the tester hadn't come out so perfectly, this wouldn't upset me as much as it did

You make me so angry, you perfect little snowflake

I figured the key for the brownies to come out of the pan properly was to add those extra few minutes to the baking time, and to chill them before trying to take them out of the pan (the second batch, while I'd let it cool for half an hour, I still felt some residual heat, and the tester was left neglected while I did other stuff, so it was cooling for probably over an hour.)

Once again, I went to make the brownies, armed with the knowledge earned from those past defeats, and... I accidentally mixed up my 1/3 cup measure with my 1/4 cup measure and added too much flour. I forged ahead anyway, figuring that this would make them denser and less fudgy, but that could only help me at this point.

When I finally popped them out of the pan, I was ready to rejoice, as they didn't break coming out, but I looked at them, and I don't know if I used too much cooking spray, or if it was because the batter was too thick, but there were air bubbles in the surface so you could barely see the pan's design. At that point I decided I was completely done with these brownies, so I just dusted them with sugar and covered them with sprinkles and took photos.

If you decide to be a normal person and make them in a pan, these brownies are delicious. Like I said, they're not quite fudgy enough for me, but they're a good compromise for people who like fudgy brownies and people who like cakey brownies. My family was very happy that the brownies didn't come out, since they got what my brother dubbed the sad brownie mountain (I just threw all of the broken pieces onto a plate, and they piled up) and they completely demolished it. I left all the brownies with them, since I couldn't bear to look at them.

These are basically the same as my Chocolate Pudding Brownies, except I used dark chocolate hot cocoa mix instead of instant fudge powder, and I added peppermint extract and Andes Peppermint Crunch Baking Chips. You can't go wrong with chocolate and peppermint, and I love those peppermint baking chips because they still give a little crunch, but don't stick to your teeth like crushed candy canes do. Of course, any peppermint candy would do if you don't have the baking chips. You could even stir in some mini York Peppermint Patties.

In summation, don't use a snowflake pan. And also make these brownies.

Peppermint Hot Cocoa Snowflake Brownies
Yield: 12 brownies

Ingredients

2/3 cup sugar
9 tbsp. quality dark chocolate hot cocoa mix
½ cup flour
½ tsp. salt
2 eggs
½ cup melted butter
¼ cup milk or cream
1 tsp. vanilla extract
½ tsp. peppermint extract
½ cup semisweet chocolate chips
½ cup peppermint baking chips
Powdered sugar

Directions
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line an 8 or 9 inch square pan with foil, and lightly spray with nonstick
cooking spray. In a large bowl, whisk together the sugar, hot cocoa mix, flour, and salt. Mix in eggs, butter, milk, vanilla, and peppermint extract, and stir until smooth. Fold in the chocolate chips and peppermint chips. Spread evenly into the prepared pan and bake for 25 minutes, or until the edges pull away from the pan. Cool and dust with powdered sugar.

If making in a silicone snowflake pan: Generously grease each cavity with nonstick cooking spray. Add 1/4 cup of batter to each cavity. Bake for 30 minutes. Let cool completely, then chill in the refrigerator up to 30 minutes. Remove from pan and let come to room temperature before serving. Makes 9 snowflake brownies.

Note: the silicone pan I use was roughly comparable to a jumbo cupcake tin. If using a smaller pan, use less batter and reduce the baking time.

Recipe adapted from my middle school Home Ec class (original source unknown)

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