Roasted Cherry Brownies

I haven’t forgotten about my blog! I’ve just been busy! Working full time and training for a marathon will do that to you… Whatever free time I’ve had in the last few months has mostly been spent sleeping and recovering. I did do some cooking and baking but the writing and editing has taken a back seat. I have a bunch of recipes lines up for the next few weeks (all things I’ve made in the last 3-4 months) and I’m going to try to get it all up and going before I flood everyone’s facebook newsfeed with Christmas baking!! (I’M SO EXCITED – I’ve started a list of all the things I will be making as soon as it’s appropriately close enough to the holidays!)

Here’s a recipe for Roasted Cherry Brownies (when they were in season, we had so many cherries) and these came out very good! They were incredibly gooey and delicious with ice-cream.

The recipe is a two-step process, the cherries had to be roasted first. If you haven’t done this before, then let me be the first to tell you that roasted cherries, by themselves, are even better than candy. They are so sweet and sinful, and would be an amazing addition to any dessert. Without further a do, here is the recipe:

Ingredients:

For roasting the cherries:

2 cups of pitted cherries, halved**

2 Tbsp of sugar

For the Brownie mix:

7 Ounces of baking chocolate (semi sweet, unsweetened, whichever you prefer)

1 ½ cups of sugar

3 Tbsp of Cocoa powder

1 stick of butter (or ½ a cup)

3 eggs

2 Tsp of Vanilla extract

1 cup of all purpose flour

Pinch of salt

Roasting the cherries in a 1 step recipe. Toss the cherries and sugar together in a roasting pan, bake for 10 minutes in a very hot oven (450-degree).

In double-boiler, melt the chocolate and butter until smooth. Whisk in the cocoa powder. Remove from heat.

Mix the eggs, vanilla and salt until smooth, whisk in the chocolate mixture. When the mixture is smooth, stir in the flour.

Once you take the cherries out of the oven, reduce the oven temperature to 350-degrees so the brownies don’t burn.  Stir the cherries into the brownie mix and pour into a greased and floured 9”x9” brownie pan.

Bake for 40 minutes. If you do a toothpick test, it should come out crumby but dry. Let it cool before cutting it or else it will fall apart. Serve warm with some ice-cream and enjoy!

Bon Appétit! 

Cranberry White Chocolate Chip Cookies

After reading a very interesting article on the science of a chocolate chip cookie, I was compelled to try my own. No recipe, just good ingredients. I’m already over satisfied with the chocolate chip cookie recipe I already use so I changed it up a little with the craisins and white chocolate. If you don’t have much of a sweet tooth, these cookies probably aren’t for you. However, if you do like sweets… You have GOT to try these!

Ingredients

2 ¼ Cups of All-purpose Flour

1 Tsp Baking Soda

1 Tsp Salt

1 Cup of Butter (2 sticks), room temperature

1/2 Cup of White Sugar

1 Cup of Brown Sugar

1 Tsp of Brandy (or more)

1 Egg

3 Tbsp of Milk

1 Cup of White Chocolate Chips

1 Cup of dried Cranberries

(The boy likes them. Success!)

1. In a large bowl, mix butter and sugars until light and fluffy.

2. Add in the egg, brandy and milk. Mix until well combined.

3. Mix flour, baking soda and salt. Slowly stir into the wet ingredients until combined.

4. Add in the chocolate and cranberries.

5. Place on a baking sheet in a 325-degree oven for 8-10 minutes, until the cookies are golden and the kitchen smells divine.

Bon Appétit!

P.S. Gifting baked goods is also the secret to not gaining 20lbs a week

Chocolate Sugar Cookie Santa Mittens

I’m finally getting back on track with posting recipes after a busy holiday season. I probably should have posted these ones WAY before Christmas but I completely lost track of time. As always, I make up reasons to bake my days away and made these specifically for my brother’s grade 4 class as a treat to bring in for their Christmas party. The recipe is very simple, as is the design. The hardest part about any of these sugar cookies is really the amount of patience you have to let them dry properly between steps. It’s really come to my attention recently that patience is probably the only skill in life you need to get anywhere, or create absolutely anything. This is good practice. Enjoy!

Chocolate Sugar Cookies:

Ingredients:

¾ cup of all-purpose flour

1/3 cup of cocoa powder

6 Tbsp of butter, unsalted and at room temperature

¾ cup of confectioners’ sugar

1 egg

½ tsp vanilla extract

Pinch of salt

In a bowl, combine the flour, salt, cocoa powder. In a larger bowl, or the stand mixer (my one true love!) beat the sugar and butter together until light and fluffy (a few minutes). Stir in the egg and vanilla on low speed until combined. Slowly add in the flour mixture until dough forms. Wrap it in plastic in the disk shapes, and refrigerate for 1-2 hours. Once the dough has chilled, roll it out on a floured surface OR between two layers of plastic wrap (this method is ingenious and practically mess proof!) Cut into desired shapes only once the dough has been rolled out to ¼” in thickness. Bake in a 325-degree oven for 10 minutes. Let cool on the rack for 10 minutes before transferring them to a wire rack.

Source: Martha Stewart

For the Icing:

4 cups of confectioners’ sugar
2 tbsp. meringue powder (this stuff is expensive, and I use it way too often!)
6 tbsp. water
Gel food coloring

1. Combine all the ingredients in a stand mixer (or mix by hand) on medium speed, until the icing has a smooth and matte consistency, about 10 minutes.
2. Separate Icing into separate bowls for dying. Use gel food coloring to not alter the texture.
3. Once all the colors are created, divide the colors into two batches, one thick batch for the contour lines, and one thinner watered down batch for the filling. Place the contour icings into bags and pipe the outline onto cookies. Fill the cookies with the runnier icing until smooth. Let them dry 1-2 hours, or overnight.
4. Pipe detail onto cookies and let set 1-2 hours.
5. They are ready to eat or wrap into cute little cellophane gift bags!

Bon Appetit!

Two-Bite Brownie Santa Hats

I really love holiday baking. I can go crazy in the kitchen and no matter how much I bake, I won’t be tempted to eat any of it because I give so much of it away to friends, family, school teachers etc. This particular recipe was as an idea I saw online. There are a lot of recipes for these brownies but I thought it would be so much easier to just buy two-bite brownies and make cream cheese frosting (the easiest and also the best) although... Betty Crocker Icing would have made this even easier. The entire assembly process took around 10 minutes and I heard from my dad, that these were a huge hit at his office! Furthermore, I’m pretty sure they are the cutest thing to ever come out of my kitchen.

Ingredients:

1 Lbs Strawberry

1 Bag of Two-Bite Brownies

For the Frosting:

8 Oz of Cream Cheese

5 Tbsp of Butter

3 Cups of Icing Sugar

A Splash of lemon juice

Cream the butter and the cream cheese until light with a hand mixer, slowly add icing sugar while slowly mixing. Add the lemon juice squeeze. Place the frosting into a Ziploc freezer bag or actual piping bag with a round tip. Place icing on each brownies. Wash and pat dry all the strawberries. Cut the stems off. Place one strawberry on each brownie. Top each strawberry with a dollop of icing and serve shortly after. Don’t make the mistake I made by placing these in the fridge over night… The strawberries will sweat, and you'll have to wipe them down and start over!

Bon Appétit!

Chocolate Covered Caramel Pretzels

If I make a deal with myself not to spend anytime on my computer while at home, you can pretty much guarantee I will be bored out of my mind, and whipping up several baked dishes at once and starting way too many projects in the kitchen. I don’t think I spent more than 10 minutes making these and I’m very pleased with the end results! If I were trying to create holiday treat baskets, I would definitely add these ones in it.

Ingredients:

30 Pretzels (or more until you run out of caramel and chocolate to coat them in)

A bag of Kraft Caramels, (around 35 if buying bulk)

6 Oz of Milk Chocolate chunks

Place the unwrapped caramels in a glass bowl. Microwave on high heat in 30-45 second increments until the caramels are completely melted. Place parchment paper on the counter. Stir the pretzels directly into the melted caramel. Quickly coat them all and poor the mixture onto the parchment paper. Using a fork, separate the pretzels so you don’t end up with a ball of hard caramel once it cools. Melt the chocolate chunks in a heatproof bowl over simmering water while the pretzels are cooling. One at a time, dunk the cooled pretzels into the chocolate and set to dry on a clean parchment paper sheet. Decorate with sprinkles and let cool completely before storing in an airtight container.

Bon Appétit!

Leftover Banana Goodness

Whatever you want to call it, I put the leftover Phyllo sheets from the Spanakopita that I made for dinner.


Leftover Banana Goodness

1 ripe banana
½ cup chocolate chips
Leftover Phyllo pastry dough
1-2 tbsp Maple Syrup

1. Butter the layers of Phyllo pastry sheets together.
2. Place slices of banana and chocolate chips evenly in a pile about 4"x7" on the sheets.
3. Evenly pour the maple syrup over the bananas and fold the phyllo dough over, and on the edges, to make a fully wrapped rectangle.
4. Bake in a 375-degree oven for 20 minutes, or until golden brown. Serve Immediately and enjoy!