Drizzle Topped Brownies

I'm pulling out an oldie but a goodie this morning, from the depths of my worn and tattered cookbook, and I'll tell you why.  My household has been fighting off an evil stomach bug which seems to now be morphing into a dreadful cold and/or ear infection, depending on which household member we're talking about.  Food has been the farthest thing from my mind for the last several days, and my kitchen has collected a good bit of dust as a result.

However, I know that you people are still hungry out there!  I certainly don't want your sweet tooth to go unsatisfied!  And trust me, if I could manage to, I would positively make some of these brownies right now and scarf them down.

Mmm, drizzle topped brownies.  I can't quite recall what magazine my mother cut this recipe out of when I was a child, but my mother wasn't much for baking adventures.  Where I try 15 different chocolate chip cookie recipes, she has only ever baked one, so the fact that she even cut the recipe out at all was kind of a big deal.  She put it at the back of the little green metal box that she used to hold her recipe cards, and promptly forgot about it.

My dad was the first one to make these brownies, actually.  He skipped the glaze, because my dad was the kind of baker improvised in the kitchen rather than baking a recipe as written, and added more chocolate chips than were called for, because you just can't go wrong with chocolate chips.  They were delicious, and best of all, they were quick and easy to make.  Enjoy, just make sure you've got a tall glass of milk handy!

Drizzle Topped Brownies
Printer-friendly recipe

1 1/4 cup buttermilk baking mix (I've always used Jiffy Baking Mix)
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup Dutch cocoa powder (natural works too, just not quite as rich)
1/2 cup melted butter
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups chocolate chips of your choosing - white, milk, semisweet, dark, whatever you like

Glaze:
1/2 cup 10x sugar
1 tsp water
1/2 tsp vanilla

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease an 8x8 or 9x9 pan, or make a foil sling, if you want to cut and wrap your brownies individually, and grease it well.
2. In a medium bowl, mix baking mix, sugar, and cocoa well. Add melted butter, eggs and vanilla, mixing well. Stir in chocolate chips gently.
3. Spread batter in pan. Bake 22-28 minutes, checking with a toothpick inserted in the center to make sure they are done. Toothpick should come out mostly clean with a moist crumb two attached. Cool brownies completely.
4. Mix glaze ingredients and pour into a Ziploc baggie. Cut small (and I do mean small) hole in the corner of the bag and drizzle the glaze over the cooled brownies. Cut into bars and enjoy.

Hershey's Best Brownies

I like brownies. A lot. So much that I have at least 5 different brownie recipes that I alternate and make pretty frequently. Now I'm going to have to add one to this! These were awesome. I brought these to a moms' meeting I went to, and they were devoured. Husband even had one and loved it, and he's not a huge fan of all things chocolate. These were also super easy to make, so I highly recommend them. Big chocolate taste, fudgy texture, and frosting - you just can't go wrong with these brownies!! Seriously, you can slap chocolate frosting on just about anything and it will taste awesome.

Hershey’s Best Brownies
Printer-friendly recipe

Ingredients:
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter or margarine, melted
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup HERSHEY'S Cocoa
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup chopped nuts(optional)
CREAMY BROWNIE FROSTING(recipe follows)

Directions:
1. Heat oven to 350°F. Grease 9-inch square baking pan. Or, make an aluminum foil sling for your pan, and grease that (makes frosting and cutting the brownies a little easier).
2. Stir together butter, sugar and vanilla in bowl. Add eggs; beat well with spoon. Stir together flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt; gradually add to egg mixture, beating until well blended. Stir in nuts, if desired. Spread batter evenly in prepared pan.
3. Bake 20 to 25 minutes or until brownies begin to pull away from sides of pan. Cool completely in pan on wire rack. Prepare CREAMY BROWNIE FROSTING; spread over brownies. Cut into squares. About 16 brownies.

CREAMY BROWNIE FROSTING
3 tablespoons butter or margarine, softened
3 tablespoons HERSHEY'S Cocoa
1 tablespoon light corn syrup or honey
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup powdered sugar
1 to 2 tablespoons milk

Beat butter, cocoa, corn syrup and vanilla in small bowl until blended. Add powdered sugar and milk; beat to spreading consistency. About 1 cup frosting.

Basic Blondies

I love reading other people's blogs, I really do. And I mentioned how much I love Tastespotting (and now FoodGawker too). Seriously. I check them daily. I know, I might be a smidge obsessed.

I've found a lot of awesome food blogs I might have never found otherwise! One I'm really in love with is Annie's Eats. This is a girl after my own heart with some of the recipes she's posted. I made one today from her blog, and it is insanely awesome, and simple. And you can do it all in one bowl! No muss, no fuss! Husband will be so pleased, I haven't made a holy mess of the kitchen while baking!

Also, I think I actually managed to line my pan, for the first time ever, without actually tearing the aluminum foil. That always seems to happen to me! But not today! My baking mojo must really be flowing. So without further ado, here is the awesome recipe, slightly adapted.

Basic Blondies
Source: Annie's Eats
Printer-friendly recipe

8 tablespoons butter, melted
1 cup light brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
Mix-ins of your choice (see below)

1. Preheat the oven to 350. Line an 8x8 baking pan with foil and spray lightly with non-stick cooking spray.
2. In a microwave safe bowl, melt the butter in the microwave (slowly, you don't want any butter explosions!). Allow to cool for 5 minutes. In the bowl of the electric mixer, mix the brown sugar with the melted butter and beat until smooth. Beat in the egg and then the vanilla. Add the salt, flour and baking powder and mix until just combined. Stir in your choice of mix-ins with a wooden spoon. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and spread to level out the top nicely.
3. Bake for 22-25 minutes or until well set in the middle. Allow to cool on a wire rack before cutting into squares and wrapping well.

Some mix-in suggestions:
1/2 - 1 cup chocolate chips (milk or semisweet), peanut butter chips, butterscotch chips, white chocolate chips
1/2 cup chopped nuts (walnuts, almonds, or pecans)
1/2 cup M&Ms
1/2 cup chopped Reese's peanut butter cups
1/4 cup Heath toffee pieces
1/2 teaspoon mint extract, in addition to or in place of the vanilla extract

Seriously, this is the kind of recipe you can whip up super fast, and you more than likely have all of the ingredients at home, so print this one out and put it in a safe place. I definitely recommend it!

Oh, and BTW, I'm totally still sore. I stretched yesterday for a bit after my upper body workout with my trainer, but I'm still walking kind of like a pregnant lady because I feel like I can't totally straighten my legs. I'm sure it's super attractive. Happy Friday!

Supernatural Brownies

I have company coming tomorrow for the Fourth of July, which I'm excited about, so naturally, I've been cleaning and baking like crazy to prepare (because okay, the Fourth of July is about grilling, but I can't grill, so I bake instead). In fact, I've baked a huge pan of brownies and a new cake recipe (to be posted this evening after I frost it). But first, let's talk brownies.

I love brownies. In fact, I love brownies so much that I have discovered, and religiously follow, a blog called The Brownie Project. It's tons and tons of brownie recipes. It's pretty darn awesome. Anyway, I found a recipe I really wanted to try there recently, called Supernatural Brownies, and it comes from a Nick Malgieri cookbook called Chocolate: From Simple Cookies to Extravagant Showstoppers. Right off the bat, they sounded pretty awesome.

They were super easy to make, and didn't call for anything wacky or unusual, so I was able to put them together very quickly. And wow, are they amazing. Here's the recipe - hang on to it, this one's definitely a keeper! These might just be my new favorite brownies!

Supernatural Brownies
from Nick Malgieri's Chocolate: From Simple Cookies to Extravagant Showstoppers

Printer-friendly recipe

2 sticks (1/2 pound) unsalted butter
8 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, cut into 1/4-inch pieces (I used semisweet)
4 large eggs
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose flour

1. Set the rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 350 degrees. Butter and line a 13x9x2-inch pan with buttered parchment or foil.
2. Bring a saucepan of water to a boil and turn off heat. Combine butter and chocolate in a heat proof bowl and set over pan of water. Stir occasionally until melted.
3. Whisk eggs together in a large bowl, then whisk in the salt, sugars, and vanilla. Stir in the chocolate and butter mixture, then fold in the flour.
4. Pour batter into prepared pan and spread evenly. Bake for about 45 minutes, until top has formed a shiny crust and batter is moderately firm. Cool in pan on a rack. Wrap pan in plastic wrap and keep at room temperature or refrigerated until the next day.
5. To cut brownies, unmold onto a cutting board, remove paper, and replace with another cutting board. Turn brownies right side up and trim away edges. Cut brownies into 2-inch squares.

**UPDATE** Whoops, I totally forgot to give you guys the link to The Brownie Project, so here it is! This is what happens when you try to finish off a blog posting when your toddler is trying to climb you. The Brownie Project

Super Outrageous Brownies

Mmm, I love brownies. Without nuts. Nuts do not belong in brownies. It's like nuts are the party crasher that people throw into brownies. Ick. **not a fan of nuts in the first place, though** Enough about nuts!

So, I like brownies a lot. Too much, probably. I stumbled upon a recipe for the Barefoot Contessa's Outrageous Brownies a few years ago, and have been tweaking it ever since, adding a little more chocolate here and there, a little more coffee, and so on. They are rich, decadent, and they scream for a glass of milk to go with them. They also make an awesome base for a brownie sundae (which is the way Husband likes them).

I am such a giving person, I've decided to make my Outrageous Brownies for my book club meeting tonight (of course, I'll get to keep the leftovers, and since it's a small group, surely there will be leftovers...). And, not only that, but I'm sharing the recipe with the blogosphere!!

Now, a word to the wise: the brand of chocolate you use does make a difference. I can taste the difference when I use Baker's brand chocolate versus Ghiradelli. I'd love to use something like Schaffer-Bergen or Valhrona or one of the other snooty chocolates, but they are hard to come by around here, so Ghiradelli is as high brow as it gets for me. Another word of caution: you will make a very large mess. But if you're fortunate enough to have a husband who loves doing dishes like mine does, you'll be okay. And the final warning: let your eggs come to room temperature before using them. I can't quite explain what difference this makes (it's something scientific and chemical-y), but it's important. The brownies seem to go stale faster if the eggs are cold. Go figure. Enough warnings, here's the recipe!

Type A Mommy's Super Outrageous Brownies
Printer-friendly recipe

1 lb unsalted butter (does not need to be room temp)
1 lb (16 oz) semisweet chocolate chips or squares
5 cups semisweet chocolate chips
6 oz unsweetened chocolate
6 large eggs
4 Tbsp instant coffee powder or 2 Tbsp espresso powder
2 Tbsp good vanilla extract
2 c sugar
1 1/2 c flour
1 Tbsp baking powder
2 tsp salt
Optional, but yummy twist: 2 c Heath bar pieces

1. Preheat oven to 350. Grease and flour a 13"x18"x1 1/2" sheet pan.
2. Melt butter, 1 lb chocolate chips, and unsweetened chocolate on top of a double boiler. This may take a bit of a while. Stir to make sure all chocolate melts. Once all melty, take the mixture off heat and let it cool for about 5-10 minutes.
3. In your mixing bowl, stir eggs, instant coffee, vanilla, and sugar. Stir in slightly cooled chocolate mixture, and let the whole thing come to room temperature. (I usually set a timer for 15-20 minutes.)
4. In another bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, and salt. Add to cooled chocolate mixture. In yet another bowl, toss your 4 cups of chocolate chips with 1 Tbsp of flour to coat (this will keep the chocolate chips from sinking to the bottom and will ensure an even distribution amongst in your batter). Pour in floured chips and mix well.
5. Pour batter into prepared pan and use spatula to spread around evenly. Tap pan lightly on countertop to get rid of bubbles in the batter and place in oven for 30 minutes. Halfway through the baking time, rap pan against oven shelf to get rid of any other bubbles, and turn pan around. Do not overbake!!!! Brownies will look a little underdone when you take them out. Cool thoroughly before cutting into squares.

** These brownies refrigerate well to keep fresh.**

**** UPDATE: I forgot, it's good to refrigerate the brownies in the pan before you cut them for about an hour - it solidifies them, and prevents the brownies from cracking and coming apart when you slice them up. ****

Recipe Swap: Type A Mommy's Favorite Brownies

Woo hoo! Anissa is hosting a recipe swap, and boy do I love recipes (obviously!). This week's swap is for Brownies. I'm a day late, but I'm still excited to look at the other recipes and to share mine. Mine is my mother's brownie recipe, one that she's baked as long as I can remember. My favorite part about these brownies is how easy they are to make.

Type A Mommy's Favorite Brownies
Printer-friendly recipe

1/3 cup butter
2 squares unsweetened chocolate
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
3/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder

1. Grease an 8x8 or 9x9 square pan, set aside. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. In small bowl, put chocolate squares and butter, and stick in the microwave. Nuke for at least 1 minute, then take out and stir. You will probably need to nuke again, for around 30 seconds to 1 minute before the chocolate and butter truly melt together. Stir until smooth, set aside.
3. Grab another bowl, and mix flour, salt, and baking powder with a fork.
4. Once slightly cooled (no longer hot), add sugar and eggs to chocolate/butter mixture and mix. Add chocolate mixture to flour mixture and blend well.
5. Pour batter into pan and smooth around to fill pan evenly. Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

So yummy, and so easy.

Mmmm...brownies

I'm trying to make Husband's lunches more homemade, and sort of healthful, so I made some brownies today, both for me to have and for Husband to have in his lunch. I haven't had these brownies in a long time - they're so yummy. It's my mom's recipe, that she says dates back to her mom's Betty Crocker cookbook. They're so simple and yummy, just as simple, really - the ingredients are the kinds of things I generally have around the house, because I like to bake, and you really can't screw them up. Here's the recipe:

Type A Mommy's Favorite Brownies
Printer-friendly recipe

1/3 cup butter
2 squares unsweetened chocolate
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
3/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder

1. Grease an 8x8 or 9x9 square pan, set aside. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. In small bowl, put chocolate squares and butter, and stick in the microwave. Nuke for at least 1 minute, then take out and stir. You will probably need to nuke again, for around 30 seconds to 1 minute before the chocolate and butter truly melt together. Stir until smooth, set aside.
3. Grab another bowl, and mix flour, salt, and baking powder with a fork.
4. Once slightly cooled (no longer hot), add sugar and eggs to chocolate/butter mixture and mix. Add chocolate mixture to flour mixture and blend well.
5. Pour batter into pan and smooth around to fill pan evenly. Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

Mmm, enjoy!