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

Mother's Day Recipe Round Up

Happy Mother's Day to all you mamas out there! To celebrate, I figured I'd do a round up of all of my mama's favorite recipes from the blog.

Got any good mother's day plans? We're going into Brooklyn to celebrate my great uncle's birthday, but we'll have to work in a Marvel movie at some point because that's become tradition and you don't mess with tradition.

Spinach and Artichoke Bites: My mother keeps asking me when I'm making these again.

Cheesecake Stuffed Portal Cake: This was my brother's birthday cake, but my mom has already requested the same for her birthday. Or just the cheesecake part.

Raspberry Red Wine Sauce: I always have to save an extra jar just for her.

Cherry Almond Oatmeal Cookies

Mom: I want you to make me my cookies

Me: Your cookies?

Mom: Yeah, the cherry ones.

Sfogliatelle Scones: My mom is the one who actually named these scones, deciding that they tasted like one of her favorite Italian pastries but in the form of one of her favorite breakfast pastries

Raspberry Nutella Marshmallows: Whenever the subject of marshmallows comes up, my mom always says. "you should make the Nutella ones again. Those were good."

Zucchini Brownies: I actually developed this recipe for my mom in my pre-bloggy days. Fat free, super moist and chocolatey with hidden veggies, these are one of her favorite low-guilt treats

Raspberry Red Wine Ice Cream: This ice cream was inspired by the raspberry sauce above and has quickly become a favorite.

White Chocolate Chip Cupcakes: My mom often requested these cupcakes in my pre-bloggy days.

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)

*Disclaimer: This post includes affiliate links*

Recipes for Little Helpers Round Up

I've always figured that the kid friendliest recipes would be the ones that little hands could help out with. Kids can learn good kitchen etiquette, they get a sense of accomplishment from actually making the food they're going to eat, and Mom or Dad gets some help in the kitchen. Plus, food is fun, so everybody wins. So if you've got a little helper, I've done a round up of some of my recipes that fit this description: easy prep (and easy clean up), minimal use of sharp implements of doom, no mixer necessary, and many of them (with a few exceptions) are even safe for the littlest hands that have trouble staying out of their mouths. (I also had a little too much fun with the new "Comic Book Theme" on Picmonkey. :D)

Obviously, parents are the best judges of what their kids can help with, that should go without saying. I'm just trying to be helpful.

Breakfast

Funky Monkey Oatmeal Muffins

Gluten and egg free, can be made dairy free with the substitution of vegan chocolate hazelnut spread. Little ones can mash the bananas and mix the up the batter.

Banana Chocolate Chip Mug Cake

Dairy, gluten, and refined sugar free, this can be mixed right in the mug it's cooked in, and kids can watch it rise in the microwave. (Note: the mug can be very hot right out of the microwave)

Poppin' Pebbles Berry Almond Muffins

One bowl, egg free muffins that include kid-friendly cereal

Peanut Butter Oatmeal Breakfast Cookies

Peanut butter, banana, oats, and applesauce make them good for breakfast. Sugar makes them cookies. (Gluten and dairy free)

Peach Crumble Cups

A homemade graham cracker crust is filled with canned peaches (peach pie filling also works) and topped with crisp mix (Egg free)

Lunch and Dinner

How to Make Pasta in the Microwave

Great for a quick meal or a snack when making a whole pot of pasta isn't feasible. Older kids can learn to do this by themselves, and it's way better than Easy Mac. (Note: the bowl will be very hot straight out of the microwave.)

Individual Cheater's Meatloaf

Kids can mix up this 5 ingredient meatloaf with their hands (always a fun time), and then shape it for the muffin tins

Pepperoni Pizza Waffles

It's pizza and a waffle all in one. Pancake mix makes the batter a breeze to put together, and using the waffle iron means it cooks fast. It's a meal in itself or a fun alternative to breadsticks. (Egg free)

Homemade Uncrustables

I loved Uncrustables as a kid, and it never occurred to me that I could make my own. Kids can make their own flavor combinations, and use pastry cutters to cut them into fun shapes. Plus, they can be adapted for different dietary needs (gluten free bread, nut free butter, etc.)

Dessert

Peanut Butter Blondies

If kids are willing to sacrifice their Halloween candy, they can help make these blondies. The batter takes a little extra arm strength to whip up, but they can handle it.

Busy Day S'mores Cake

I have a friend who makes this chocolate cake with her toddler's help (she even subs in grated zucchini for some of the oil), and uses the opportunity to talk about science (baking soda plus vinegar equals SCIENCE) and shapes. My addition was to use toasted marshmallows instead of frosting. (Egg and dairy free, vegan without the marshmallows)

Chocolate Pudding Brownies

I got this recipe originally from my middle school home ec class. Melted butter and instant pudding mix make these brownies super simple, and my public school curriculum agrees this is a good recipe for kids to make.

Frozen Nutella-Covered Bananas

This barely counts as a recipe, and even the littlest can get involved by adding sprinkles or chopped nuts before they go in the freezer. (Gluten and egg free, use dairy free chocolate hazelnut spread for vegan)

Zucchini Brownies

The hardest part is shredding the zucchini. Bonus, it's a good way to sneak in some veggies (vegan)

Homemade Fudge Brownie Mix

No need to by a boxed mix at the store. Save time and money by making your own brownie mix right at home

April's here! And you know what that means: it's time for Camp NaNoWriMo! With all new adjustable word count goals. I'm taking it easy on myself this session with a 30k goal (trust me, 1000 words a day is a lot easier than 1556) and a couple of fanfic ideas that have been rattling around in my head for a while.

You know what else that means? The closing date for my new condo is at the end of this month. Add into all this the fact that a key bridge in my area has been closed for repairs, doubling my normal commute time. And another bridge flooded out this weekend, so now my commute time has tripled until that's cleared up. So my free time has been streeeeeeeetched a bit thin.

So you know what I decided I needed on hand? Some more homemade mixes. But not just any old mixes. When I don't feel good, or I've had a bad day, there is nothing I want more than a good, fudgy brownie. You know I'm not usually a fan of box mixes, but brownies are one of the things that I will actually go for a mix for because I hate chopping and melting unsweetened chocolate-- which is a step many of the best and fudgiest recipes calls for-- and Ghiradelli makes some awesome brownie mixes.

But I can't help but feel like a complete and total fake using a box mix, so I decided to make my own.

Something I've learned in the course of my homemade mix obsession is that you can substitute 1 square (1 oz.) of unsweetened baking chocolate with 3 tbsp. of unsweetened cocoa powder and 1 tbsp. of vegetable oil. Who knew, right? Once you've got that information, all the rest is easy.

All that remained was to find a good, properly fudgy, brownie recipe to mixify. Well, where else would I go but to Old Reliable?

This fudge brownie recipe is intense. Rich, chocolatey, so fudgy it's like candy, and even with the chopping and the melting of the chocolate, it's one of the simplest brownie recipes that I've ever made. But that didn't mean I couldn't simplify it further. Now I can have the batter mixed and in the oven in minutes the next time I want them. It might be the perfect first dessert to bake in my brand new oven.

Homemade Fudge Brownie Mix
Yield: Approx. 3¾ cups dry mix

Ingredients
2 cups sugar
1 cup flour
¾ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
½ tsp. salt
Optional: up to 2 cups mix-ins (the original recipe recommends chopped nuts, I went with a mixture of peanut butter and chocolate chips)

Directions
Sift together the sugar, flour, cocoa powder, and salt. Make sure it's evenly mixed. Add to a jar or airtight container. If adding mix-ins, layer them on top, using plastic wrap to keep them separate. Store in a cool dry place up to 1 year.

To bake, add 1 cup melted butter (or vegetable oil), 4 eggs, ¼ cup vegetable oil, and 1 tsp. vanilla extract to the dry mix. Mix well. Stir in mix-ins, if using. Add the batter to a greased 9x13 inch baking dish. Bake at 350 degrees F for 30-33 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool completely before cutting. Dust with powdered sugar, if desired, before serving.

Based on the Fudgy Brownie recipe from The Good Housekeeping Illustrated Cookbook