Chocolate Pudding Brownies

I know, this week has been weird. Instead of my regular Sunday/Wednesday posting schedule, you got Monday/Friday. Well you know what? Anybody who didn't have to deal with bounty hunters and floods at work can shut their cake hole.

That's right. Bounty hunters and floods. I've got all my facebook friends convinced that my job should be a sitcom. Half the time I think I'm getting punk'd myself. Except I don't think that you could make this stuff up if you tried. See, the sprinkler burst (the working theory is that the movers hit it, but the movers weren't really moving anything tall, I don't really believe that. But since our security company sucks, the cameras don't face the right way, and we'll never know exactly what happened). So the fire alarm starts blaring, and because we had a training class at the time of some of the best and brightest in pharmaceutical sales, I had to deal with the noise, trying to figure out what was happening, and full grown adults coming up to me asking, "what's going on?" and "what should we do?"

These are the people that sell medications to your doctors. I want you to keep that in mind.

Since I work for the facilities management company, once I convinced the trainees that blaring alarms mean you should probably evacuate the building, I called the landlord who told me there was a flood on the first floor. I went to check it out, and the hallway was flooded with this black liquid that kind of smelled like fresh tar. This is apparently the water in the sprinkler system that they will allow to rain on me if there is ever an actual fire. Black. Smells like tar. They keep telling me this is water.

That was a week ago. On Wednesday, I had two bounty hunters come in looking for a woman that had jumped bail and her last known work address was with us.

This is real life, people. My life.

Oh, and did I mention the mystery pizza that showed up? Yeah. When I got in touch with the guy it was for, he tells me that Lynn was the one who ordered lunch, and she didn't order pizza. So I get in touch with Lynn, who tells me that she ordered Mexican, not pizza. Floods, bounty hunters, and mystery pizzas. I'm afraid to see what happens next week.

After all this excitement, I needed something quick and simple to give you guys. I was flipping through some of the recipes that I've collected over the years. Because I'm a hoarder, I kept every recipe that teachers gave out for free, and I found this brownie recipe from my eighth grade Home Ec class.

This is brownie recipe is easy to make, quick to whip up, and super chocolatey. The texture is a bit odd, not precisely fudgy, but not chewy either. But it's perfect for that midweek, I couldn't make up the crap I deal with, chocolate craving.


Chocolate Pudding Brownies {Printable Version}
Yield: 12 brownies

Ingredients
1 (3.3 oz.) pkg. instant chocolate pudding (I used chocolate fudge)
2/3 cup sugar
½ cup flour
½ tsp. salt
2 eggs
½ cup melted butter
¼ cup milk or cream
1 tsp. vanilla extract
½ cup semisweet chocolate 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 pudding mix, sugar, flour, and salt. Mix in eggs, butter,
milk, and vanilla, and stir until smooth. Fold in the chocolate 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.

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

Sunday(Monday) S'mores: S'mores Mud Pie



Does anyone else see the face? It amuses me.

 It's Sunday S'mores! On a Monday. Thought I would shake things up a bit. Okay, actually this is not what I was going to post for this week's Sunday S'mores. It was supposed to be a brownie s'mores pie with a layer of ooey-gooey toasted marshmallows on top. But this weekend was the annual family barbecue at my Uncle Hugo's house in Brooklyn and I made lemon cookies for Aunt Ida and pasta salad and we went and played volleyball in the pool and ate copious amounts of Aunt Sophie's potato pie and bet on the kids racing horses...

Not real horses. Wooden horses. See there are six of them, and the back patio is made up of all these blocks, so we roll three dice and the horses that are chosen move up a block. And then there are hurdles (brooms, or Bella the dog as she generally chooses to lie down in the middle of the "racetrack") that you need a double to get over. And we bet in quarters and Kevin does the odds...

It's one of those traditions that loses something in the translation.

So this weekend was kind of busy, and a little emotionally wrought as it was the first real family gathering without my grandmother, and I hadn't had anything planned for Sunday S'mores come Sunday. I was going through my cookbooks and came across a recipe that I would have sworn would be a sure bet. It was a brownie pie from a Betty Crocker cookbook. Simple recipe, basic ingredients, I'd just swap out a graham cracker crust for the pastry one, and broil some marshmallows on top. Easy-peasy, right?

Wrong

If you follow me on Facebook, then you already know that the recipe had far too much batter for the regular 9 inch pie plate it called for. But my troubles started before that. I first made way too much graham cracker crust (not the worst problem, but I should have been wary after that). I'm not much of a nut fan, so I added two cups of chocolate chips rather than the one cup plus one cup chopped nuts and immediately saw that it was far too much, which only exacerbated the excess batter problem. Then, as I was dishing the batter into the plate, I saw that I had done a crap job of mixing in the flour; there was maybe 1/2 cup of dry flour at the bottom of the mixing bowl. I tried to hurriedly mix it in to the remaining batter, which is probably why I wasn't paying as much attention as I should have to how much I was dishing out.

Not one to be discouraged, I placed it in the oven, and half an hour in to the 45-60 minute cooktime, the smoke alarm started blaring because the pie had overflowed and batter was burning on the bottom of the oven.

So brownie pie=epic fail.

But I had the extra graham cracker crust, so I figured I would persevere. Just, not with anything baked, because I had to wait for the oven to cool so I could scrub off the burned batter. So I thought, how about a marshmallow mouse pie? Toasted marshmallows, whipped with whipping cream and vanilla, fold in some chocolate shavings and drizzle with chocolate. Except I only had half a bag of marshmallows, and that didn't make enough for a pie (you'll notice in the recipe that I tell you to use a full bag; that's because the marshmallow layer was still a bit thin for me).

Then I remembered that I had some chocolate pudding mix in the pantry. I poured chocolate pudding over the marshmallow, chilled it for a couple hours, and had Sunday S'mores ready for Monday. What're you gonna do, eh?

S'mores Mud Pie {Printable Version}
Yield: 8 servings

Ingredients
For the crust:
1 ½ cups finely crushed graham cracker crumbs
5 tbsp. melted butter
3 tbsp. brown sugar

For the filling:
1 pkg. (10 oz.) marshmallows
1 cup heavy cream, chilled
2 tbsp. sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 pkg. chocolate instant pudding mix (plus ingredients on box)

Directions
Prepare the crust: Preheat the oven to 350°F. In a mixing bowl, mix together graham cracker crumbs,
brown sugar, and melted butter. Press the crust mixture evenly into a 9 inch pie plate, allowing it to
come up the sides. Bake 6-8 minutes, until the crust is fragrant and the edges start to brown. Cool
completely on a wire rack before filling.

Prepare the filling: Place the marshmallows on a baking sheet lined with tin foil, and place them under
the broiler for about 30 seconds, until the marshmallows are a dark golden brown and have just started
to smoke. Carefully flip the marshmallows over and repeat on the other side. Add the toasted
marshmallows to a blender with ½ cup of the heavy cream and pulse a few times until smooth. If the
mixture is still warm, chill it in the refrigerator 30 minutes to 1 hour, or until completely cooled.

Add the remaining heavy cream, sugar, and vanilla to the bowl of a stand mixer and whip on high with
the whisk attachment until soft peaks form. Add the marshmallow mixture and whip on high until stiff.
Spread evenly into the prepared crust.

Prepare the pudding according to the directions on the box. Pour the pudding on top of the
marshmallow mousse, being careful not to overfill the pie plate. Cover in tin foil and refrigerate 4-6
hours, or overnight. Or freeze for 4 hours. Can be served chilled or frozen.

Recipe by Kim

Sunday S'mores: Easy S'mores Pudding Pops

I have a confession to make. I wasn't sure if I would have anything ready for Sunday S'mores this week. I wasn't feeling great the last couple of days, and it was getting to the point where I was thinking that I might just share some s'mores-themed recipes that I'd been collecting across the interwebz.

Inspiration finally hit last night when I was eating the last of the toasted marshmallow ice cream. What about pops? I thought. I could do like a graham cracker crust, and I have some hot fudge in the refrigerator. And hey, wouldn't it be great with some of the marshmallow ice cream? Look down at the empty bowl in my hands. Oops. Well I've got some marshmallows and some instant pudding. That might work instead.

I used some silicone baking cups that I had gotten for Christmas as the molds, and let me tell you- they worked beautifully. They kept their shape and I was able to pop the pops (heh) out super easily.

These were thrown together last minute last night, so when I call them easy, I really mean easy. Plus, the graham cracker crust and gooey fudge surprise in the middle make them seem elegant and decadent and not at all like something that you threw together 10 minutes before bedtime, so that's always a plus.

Before I share the recipe with you, there's something else. Kayle, aka The Cooking Actress, awarded me with the Addictive Blog Award!

 

I'm not sure that Kayle's read her own blog, because I hardly think of this as addictive compared to her's! But thank you, thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!!!!

Here are the rules:

1. Thank the person who nominated you and link back.

2. Share a little bit about why you started blogging.

3. Copy and paste the award to your blog.

4. Nominate 10 other Addictive bloggers and let them know!

Why did I start blogging? Mostly to see if I could. And to do something constructive with all of the baking I'd been doing.

The nominees are:

1. Jen from Juanita's Cocina
2. Heidi from Young Grasshopper
3. Jennie from The Messy Baker
4. C.J. from Food Stories
5. Choc Chip Uru from Go Bake Yourself
6. Brianne from Cupcakes and Kale Chips
7. The Squishy Monster
8. Arva from I Live in a Frying Pan
9. Megan from domestic diva, M.D.
10. Amy from Oh, Bite It!

Easy S’mores Pudding Pops {Printable Version}  

Yield: 12 cupcake-sized pops

Ingredients 
For the crust: 
1 ½ cups finely crushed graham cracker crumbs 
5 tbsp. melted butter 
3 tbsp. brown sugar

For the pops: 
6 tbsp. fudge sauce 
Approx. 72 mini marshmallows 
1 pkg. vanilla instant pudding mix (plus ingredients on box)

Directions 
Prepare the crust: in a mixing bowl, mix together graham cracker crumbs, brown sugar, and melted butter.

Spoon a small amount of the crust into each pop mold* and press it down evenly, allowing a small amount to come up the sides. Heat the fudge sauce to spreadable consistency and spoon 1 ½ tsp. into each pop mold, spreading it to fill the prepared crust. Add about 6 mini marshmallows to each pop mold.

Prepare the pudding mix according to the directions on the package. Before it starts to thicken, distribute it evenly between the molds, being careful to leave at least ¼ inch from the top. Tap the molds gently to get rid of air bubbles. Add lollipop sticks, making sure to push them to the bottom of the mold so the graham cracker crust holds it in place. Freeze 2 hours, until the top has hardened.

Remove the pops from the freezer and press the remaining crust evenly on the top of each pop. If the crust isn’t sticking, let the pops sit at room temperature for a minute or heat the crust mixture for a few seconds in the microwave. Freeze for 4 hours.

*I used silicone baking cups as my molds, and that influenced my measurements. Any sort of wide-mouthed mold works well for these pops, including plastic cups, but you may have to adjust your ingredients accordingly.

Recipe by Kim