Finally! We Bring You Brownies!

How have we possibly been so remiss?  We’ve been posting for more than a year and have shared more than 100 recipes, but not one of them was for brownies!  How is that even possible?  Well, in an effort to make amends for this egregious oversight, I bring you not just plain old brownies, but rich, chocolaty, chewy, gooey, caramel covered, pecan studded, turtle brownies.  You’ve waited long enough, so let’s get started. 

Here’s what you’ll need for the brownies:

⅓ cup cocoa
⅓ cup boiling water
¼ cup vegetable oil
6 Tablespoons butter
2 cups sugar
4 oz. chopped dark chocolate
½ teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons vanilla
3 eggs
1 ½ cups flour
You’ll also need about ½ cup of chopped pecans, but they don’t go inside the brownies.  Just set them aside for much later. 

Before you start with the food, line a 9x13 pan with parchment and preheat your oven to 350°

When that’s done, sift the cocoa into a sauce pan and pour over the boiling water.

Whisk over low heat until it becomes smooth.

Whisk in the sugar, oil, salt, and butter. 

Continue whisking over low heat until a good part of the sugar is dissolved and the mixture becomes very shiny.  Turn off the heat and add the chopped chocolate. 

Stir that in until it’s completely melted and incorporated.  In a separate bowl, crack your 3 eggs and beat them. 

Now, before adding them to your chocolate mixture, you need to make sure it’s not too hot.  Your finger will make the perfect thermometer for this.  Bathwater warm or cooler is fine.  If it feels hot, give it a few minutes to cool down before adding the eggs.  When it’s ready, go ahead and pour them in along with the vanilla. 

Whisk the mixture until the eggs are completely incorporated.

Sift the flour over the top.

Lose the whisk for this part and carefully fold or stir the flour in with a spatula.  You don’t want to over mix at this point.  When the flour is incorporated, pour the batter into your prepared pan.

Spread it to the edges and level it out as best you can. 

Now, into the oven for 30 – 35 minutes.  A toothpick inserted 1 inch from the edge should come out clean, and it’ll be shiny and crackly on top. 

Put those aside to cool completely.  I know, your whole house smells like brownies and it’s almost impossible, but you can do eet.  Once they’ve finished cooling, it’s time to start on the caramel.

Here’s what you’ll need:

¾ cups half & half, divided
3 Tablespoons syrup
¾ cups sugar
2 Tablespoons butter
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla

 (this caramel is on the salty side, which I like, but feel free to reduce the salt to 1/4 teaspoon if you prefer.)

Place everything but the vanilla and ¼ cup of the half & half into a pan over medium low heat.

Stir until the sugar is mostly dissolved, then increase the heat to medium and continue stirring until it comes to a boil.  Put the lid on and set a timer for 3 minutes.  During that time, get a little dish of ice water and wash your spoon, or get a clean one out.  When the time’s up, remove the lid.  It’ll probably look something like this. 

When it’s closer to ready, it will look more like this, though. 

Drip a little of the hot syrup into the water. 

It should come together into a ball that will mostly hold its shape, but is easily molded with your fingers. 

When you get to that point, turn off the heat and add the vanilla and half & half. 

It’ll hiss and sputter, but just stir, and it will calm down.  When the boiling has stopped, pour the caramel into a heatproof container set atop a hot pad or dish towel. 

As you can see, my caramel has little brown specks in it.  That just means it got a little dark in a spot on the bottom.  I had thought to toss it and start over, but it tasted so amazing, I decided to keep it.  Once it’s on the brownies, you’ll never even know.  Give the caramel a while to cool.  You want it to be a soft, spreadable consistency, but not runny.  I got impatient and put mine in the fridge for a bit.  While it cools, back to the brownies.  Remove them from the pan and cut them down to fit snuggly into a square pan. 

If you have a 9x9, that would be ideal.  Mine was 8x8, but I made it work. 

You should have a piece something like this leftover.  See those edges there?  Those are for you to eat. 

Remove the rest of the edges, and cut the remaining chunk into little squares.  About ¾ of an inch or so. 

I know, you think I’ve surely gone over the cliff, but stay with me.  I promise I don’t need a padded cell just yet.  So, back to the brownies that are in the square pan.  Pour the cooled caramel over the top, reserving about 2 Tablespoons. 

As you can see, I decided to line the pan with parchment for easy removal and cutting when they’re done.  Spread the caramel to the edges and sprinkle ⅓ cup or so of the chopped pecans over the top. 

Now, take your little brownie cubes and arrange them sort of haphazardly across the surface.  Press them gently into the caramel.

Heat the remaining caramel for 5 – 10 seconds in the microwave, just to thin it a little.  Then drizzle it all over the top. 

Last, but not least, sprinkle on the remaining chopped pecans. 

Could you just leave the whole thing in one pan and spread the caramel and pecans over the top?  Sure, but why would you when you can create a masterpiece like this?

I hope this has gained your forgiveness for our brownie blunder.  Is there something you’d really like to see that we’ve somehow overlooked? 

It's My Birthday!!

Ok, so technically my birthday isn’t until the 12th, but hubby was out of town this week, so I decided to make my cake a little early.  Besides, who wants to spend their birthday in the kitchen?  Now, ordinarily I leave birthday cakes to the professionals, but this year I decided, not only to bake myself a cake, but to go the whole nine yards.  I made real Italian buttercream, and even bought pastry bags and piping supplies to do a few decorations.  Next time you have a birthday or special event, give making your own cake a try. 

Here’s what you’ll need for the cake:

¾ cup butter (1 ½ sticks)
1 ½ cups sugar
2 eggs
1 egg yolk
2 ½ cups flour
1 cup buttermilk
1 Tablespoon vanilla
½ teaspoon almond extract (optional)

All of your ingredients must be at room temperature before you start.  Sorry, I didn’t manage to get an ingredients picture for the cake.  I will tell you to preheat your oven to 350°, though.  Also, you need to line 2, 8 inch round pans with parchment and butter the sides of the pans.  To see how to cut parchment to the proper size, I showed how in my chocolate cake post. 

Throw your softened butter into a mixing bowl. 

Beat it for a good minute or two so it becomes nice and soft and fluffy, then pour in the sugar and beat for another 3 or 4 minutes.

Add the eggs and vanilla. 

Be sure to save the extra egg white so you can use it in the buttercream later.

I know, eggs are supposed to be added one at a time… yeah, I didn’t.  Just make sure you mix until they’re completely incorporated. 

Next, sift your dry ingredients into a separate bowl and whisk them together. 

Add ⅓ of the dry ingredients. 

Mix until incorporated, making sure to scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl.  Pour in half of the room temperature buttermilk. 

Repeat.  You may notice that the mixture looks a little lumpy or curdled after the liquid additions. 

Don’t worry about that.  As long as you end with dry ingredients, it will smooth out beautifully, which you can see here.  This picture also shows why you have to scrape down the bowl frequently. 

Now divide the batter evenly between the two pans. 

Into the 350° oven for 35-40 minutes. 

So, apparently, my oven cooks a little on the hot side.  That is what causes cakes to crack on top.  Oh well, that’s what icing is for, right?  Now, cool the cakes for 30 minutes in the pans, then remove them and allow them to cool completely.  Once they’ve cooled, drop them back into their pans, cover them, and refrigerate for at least a few hours.  I left them overnight. 

Now to start on the frosting.  I knew I wanted some of my buttercream to be pink, but as usual, I would not be using artificial colors.  Instead, I used pomegranate juice. 

Unfortunately, you can’t just add it as it comes.  Adding too much liquid to your frosting will make it break.  We have to cook it down.  Easy enough.  Just pour it into a pan and boil it for a while, stirring occasionally.  As it cooks down, you’ll start to see larger bubbles forming and stacking on top of each other.  That’s a good sign that much of the water has cooked off. 

It will be very hot, so pour it into something very heat safe, and make sure it’s resting on top of a towel or hot pad.  As you can see, from the 2 cups of juice, I ended up with about ¼ cup of colored syrup. 

Set that aside and we’ll start on the buttercream.  Now, since I had never made Italian buttercream before, I used a recipe I found on the interwebs.  That being said, next time I make it, I will change it up just a bit.  To me, it was a bit too rich and buttery, so I will try cutting the butter down to 2 cups instead of the 3 that are called for.  Since I’ve never made it that way and can’t guarantee it would turn out beautifully, I’ll give you the recipe I did make.  If you feel like experimenting, try it with 2 cups and let me know how it turns out.   

Here’s what you’ll need:

1 ¼ cups sugar
½ cup water
8 egg whites
⅓ cup sugar
3 cups butter (6 sticks… what?  It’s my birthday.)

Again, it is important that everything is room temperature. 

For separating all the eggs, I used Seeley’s tip and pulled out a third bowl.  Don’t forget the egg white you save from making the cake.   

See?  Perfectly separated. 

Save those yolks, 4 of them at least, and next week I’ll show you a great way to use them!  Now, onto the syrup.  Before you start, grab a little dish of ice cold water.  In a pan over medium low heat, stir together 1 ¼ cups sugar and ½ cup water.  When the sugar has mostly dissolved, increase the temperature to medium, continuing to stir constantly.  When it reaches a boil, put on a lid and set a timer for 3 minutes. 

Now back to the mixer.  The recipe I used called for 1 teaspoon of cream of tartar, but I didn’t have that, so I just added a little squeeze of lemon juice to the egg whites.  Feel free to do either, or neither.  Now, turn the mixer on high-ish.  When the egg whites become foamy and opaque, sprinkle the over the sugar while the mixer continues to run.

Soon, the mixture will become very opaque.  You want to be able to do this.

Hopefully, like me, you’re able to accomplish that in the 3 minutes you have while the lid is on the syrup.  When the timer goes off, remove the lid.  It should look about like this. 

With a clean spoon, drop a little of the syrup into the cold water. 

You should be able to gather it together into a ball, but it should flatten easily between your finger and thumb.

When you get to that point, turn off the heat and carry the pan over to the mixer.  When the syrup has stopped boiling, with the mixer running on medium high, begin to pour the syrup very slowly into the egg whites. 

Try to get the stream to fall between the side of the bowl and the whisk.  If the syrup gets on the cold metal, it will harden rather than mixing in.  Naturally a little of it will be thrown around by the whisk no matter what you do. 

When all the syrup is into the mix, it will be quite hot.  If you have a flexible ice pack on hand, go ahead and wrap it around the bowl.  I always keep a bag of cheap frozen peas on hand for just such an occasion.  They make the best ice packs, and you can get them really cheap.

You want the mixture to be just a little over room temperature, around 80°, then it’s time to start adding the butter.  Cut the butter into about 1 Tablespoon size pieces and add them one at a time while the mixer continues to run. 

Yes, it is going to take a while.  And when you finally get close to the end of your butter, this will happen and you’ll think you’ve killed the whole thing. 

Don’t panic, just keep going.  It’s going to turn into buttercream, and soon.  See?

Now, I wanted a layer of pink in the middle of my cake as well as pink borders and a few little flowers, so I took about a third of the icing out and added some of the pomegranate syrup.  See how thick it is?

Whisk it in to get the color you’re looking for.  I added about 1 ½ teaspoons to get a nice pastel pink. 

Ok, let’s put this cake together.  Cut the bottom cake in half. 

Top the bottom half with raspberry jam, leaving a small border around the edge.  Use something really good.  I used homemade. 

Put the top back on and plop on some of the pink buttercream.

Spread, again leaving a border.

Now for the second cake.  Since this one is going to be on top, I decided to level it out a bit so I’d have a flatter surface on the top of the cake. 

Cut that cake in half.  I missed the middle, so I put the thinner piece onto the cake next.  Top that one with raspberry jam like you did the first. 

Last, you want whatever is flattest facing up. 

Now for the white buttercream.  You want to do very thin layer on the whole cake.  This is called a crumb coat, and that’s exactly what it’s for.  It traps the crumbs.  Pop the whole cake into the fridge for 30 minutes, and give your feet and back a break.  Don’t refrigerate the rest of the buttercream, though.  It needs to remain spreadable. 

Now, I’m not going to teach you how to decorate a cake.  As I’ve already said, I’m no cake decorator.  You can find great videos on youtube, though.  Here’s what I did.  I coated the whole cake in an even-ish layer of buttercream.  Looks good enough to me. 

Then I just did a border around the top and bottom of the cake in pink, and a handful of easy flowers. 

Not perfection, but I don’t think it’s half bad for my first attempt.  Especially considering how artistically inept I am. 

It was a bit time consuming, but I really enjoyed doing it.  And really, what’s better than sitting down with a delicious, and mostly pretty, slice of cake and being able to say, “I made that!” 

What food do you usually leave to the professionals?