More brownies!

So I just can't seem to get enough! Today I made three more types of brownies (partly because I can't help myself and partly because my husband said that he had never tried my brownies which was an obvious lie but I had to make sure that I saw him eat them and knew he liked them!) So here I went and set out to make more. 

I chose to make mini egg ones, cookies and cream and peanut butter. My only dilemma was that after the first two batches I ran out of baking soda. So I went to the Internet to find an alternative to baking soda cuz I was not about to leave my house today, and I found that you can substitute baking soda for three times the amount of baking powder. Well this seemed like something I should investigate. So my peanut butter ones got 3/8 teaspoons instead of 1/8. They look fine and taste fine but I feel as if they are a little more dense than my previous million batches! So I think I'll stick to using baking soda in the future. 

So for the recipes, I used my usual recipe for the base of the brownies which you can find here 

http://perezbaking.blogspot.ca/2016/02/brownies.html?m=0

and for the mini egg one all I did was crush up some mini eggs and put them on top of half of the batter and then took the rest of the batter and covered them. 

And then I laid out mini eggs on top to make it look pretty.

The next kind was just as easy! I bought cookies and cream kisses and placed them over half of the brownie batter. 

Like so, then I covered them with the rest and baked them. Once they had cooled I melted a couple of kisses and drizzled them on top of the brownies. I then threw them in the fridge for a couple of minutes to harden it. 

Then I moved on to the peanut butter. I bought peanut butter chips, so I mixed those and regular chocolate chips into the brownie mix and then scooped it into the pan. Once they were baked I threw a couple of the chips into a bowl and microwaved them for about 30 seconds and then drizzled them on top of the cooled brownies. 

Overall my favourite is the mini eggs but that could just be because they look so cute with the pastel colours and knowing that Easter isn't too far away and that I get to do some Easter baking could be helping towards it. But all these were yummy! Hope you enjoy these brownies! 

Brownie variations

So here are the different variations that you can make of my earlier post about brownies, which can be found here, http://perezbaking.blogspot.com/2016/02/brownies On that post I have the m&m peanut version, but here are the other versions I've made so far. 

Skor

Follow the recipe from my brownies post. Once the batter is all mixed add in three (or more if you really want the skor chunks) bars of crushed up skor pieces. I placed mine in a ziplock bag and just hammered them until I was satisfied with the size of the chunks. Then mix them into the batter and bake them as usual. Once mine were cooled I added some caramel drizzle on top. 

Salted caramel

For these a made my own caramel sauce, which is also the sauce that I drizzled on the skor brownies. So first I'll tell you how to make the caramel sauce. 

First pour a cup of sugar into a pot. Cook on med-high heat, mixing frequently. 

You want the sugar to break down and turn into a liquid like this. 

Remove the pot from heat and add in 6 tablespoons of butter. The butter should be chopped up into smaller pieces. When you put the butter in the pot it is going to bubble, that's fine just mix it in. 

Once it is completely combined add in 1/2 a cup of whipping cream and 1 tsp of sea salt. (If you are doing just a plain caramel sauce don't add the salt) 

Put the pot back on the burner and heat for 30 seconds, stirring constantly. Then remove from heat and let cool for 15-20 minutes. 

Mix up the brownie mix (I added the chocolate chips to this one) and put half of it in a pan, then pour most of the cooled caramel sauce over top of the mix. Add the remaining brownie mix to the pan. Bake the brownies and cool. Once cooled drizzle the rest of the caramel sauce on the brownies. Cut and enjoy! 

Red velvet cheesecake brownies

Make the brownie mix as usual, but add in a tablespoon of red food colouring. I used the gel colouring so that the brownies didn't become to liquidy. If they aren't showing a red tint then add in a bit more food colouring until you are satisfied with the colour. Pour the mix into your pan. Then put a 250g brick of cream cheese in a bowl, mix in 1/3 cup of sugar. Once combined add 1/2 tsp of vanilla and 1 egg. Mix well. Then spoon out drops of the cream cheese mixture and put them on top of the brownie. Once it is all spooned out, take a knife and swirl the cream cheese around. Bake the brownies and then let cool on the counter. Cut and enjoy! 

Those are all the variations of the brownies I made. I still want to make a cookie dough one, Oreo, peanut butter, s'more and any other kind I can think of but those will have to be for another day! I hope you all enjoy these brownies as much as my friends and family did! They really are amazing!! 

Brownies

  

So yesterday my mom, sister and the girls and I headed over to my aunts house for a "cousins dinner". I have four girl cousins on my dads side and my one cousin and I have three daughters in total together so there are a lot of girls and we have always gotten together for our little dinners and this time we decided to include our moms! So when we have these get togethers we all bring a different food and just eat and talk a lot! It's always so much fun so this time I decided to make brownies! And of course I couldn't just make one type of brownie I had to make four! So I went to Pinterest to find a good brownie recipe and settled on this one, http://lifemadesimplebakes.com/2014/06/thick-chewy-better-boxed-brownies/ they really are better than boxed brownies! But since I was making a bunch of different kinds I changed the recipe a bit. So I'll show how I made them and then show the variations for each flavour! 

Ingredients 

1/2 cup flour

3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1 1/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup unsalted butter

2 cold eggs

1/8 tsp baking soda 

1 tbsp cornstarch 

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp vanilla extract

Directions

Pre-heat oven to 325. Put butter and sugar in a microwaveable bowl and heat on high for a minute and fifteen seconds. Allow to cool on counter and once cooled add cocoa powder and vanilla extract. Mix until well combined and then transfer mixture to the bowl of a stand mixer. Turn the mixer on low speed and add the eggs one at a time. In a separate bowl whisk together flour, baking soda, salt and cornstarch. Gradually add the flour mixture to the mixer while it mixes on low speed. Once combined add whatever extras you want and then pour the batter into a 8x8 parchment lined pan. Bake at 325 for 25-30 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Allow brownies to cool for 20-30 minutes before cutting into them and enjoy! 

Now on the other recipe it calls for more butter and also for chocolate chips and chopped chocolate pieces. When I made these brownies I was so concerned about the butter being 1 stick that I forgot about the extra 3 tablespoons which actually didn't make a difference so I figured if I don't need all that butter then fine. And for the chocolate, since I was making different kinds of brownies I chose not to add the chocolate but if you love chocolate then go for it! 

The four different kinds I chose to make were peanut m&m, skor, salted caramel and red velvet cheesecake. My favourite was the skor but that's because I'm a sucker for those chocolate bars! But they were all good. So first I'll explain how to make the basic recipe and then I'll add in the different variations. 

First pre-heat the oven to 325. 

Melt the butter and sugar in the microwave for 1 minute and 15 seconds. Then mix it together until completely combined and set aside to cool for about 5 minutes. 

Once the butter mixture has cooled add the vanilla and cocoa powder and mix. 

Then transfer the mixture to the bowl of your stand mixer. Turn the speed to low and add the eggs one at a time as it mixes.

In a separate bowl combine the flour, cornstarch, salt and baking soda. Whisk together to mix.

Then while the stand mixer is still on low speed, slowly add the flour mixture to the butter mixture. 

Continue mixing until there is no more white spots and the batter is well combined.

At this point if you are making plain brownies you can add chocolate chips, but since I was making my different flavours I had different things that I needed to add in. Since my first batch was the peanut m&ms I just added them straight to the batter like you would with chocolate chips. Once you have added whatever you wish take a 8x8 pan lined with parchment paper (you can use tin foil but I found that the parchment paper worked a lot better. But with the parchment paper it stays in place in the pan a lot easier if you run it under water before hand.) Pour the batter into the pan and smooth out the top. 

Bake in the pre-heated oven for 25-30 minutes. Remove and place on a wire rack when done and let cool. Cut into squares and enjoy! 

I'll post the variations of the brownies in another post! Hope you all enjoy this recipe, it really is the best I've had! 

Garlic croutons

So my husband was on a "healthy" kick for a couple of months to lose weight because we were going on a trip to Jamaica and he wanted to look good, so his request was salad everyday. It ended up working pretty well for him and he lost 20 pounds, unfortunately for me I'm still nursing our youngest so I couldn't participate in his diet. Eventually the salads got pretty boring so every once in awhile I made a more satisfying salad. One of those was a chicken Caesar salad that I made the croutons and dressing from scratch! So that made it kind of healthy right?? So here's the recipe for garlic croutons! 

Ingredients 

2 cups bread cubes

2 tbsp butter

1 tbsp olive oil

2 minced garlic cloves

1 tsp dried parsley

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp pepper

Directions

First get your bread, it can be anything, buns, sandwich bread, French bread, literally anything. All I had this time was regular sandwich bread so that's what I used but I have done it with buns and French bread before with basically the same outcome. It is also always good to use the ends of the bread to get some croutons with a little bit more of a crunch. 

So first you have to get to chopping. Lay the bread out and cut it into little cubes. You can make them whatever size you like, I tend to keep them on the smaller size so it's easier to fit in my mouth! 

Once the bread is all chopped up throw the other ingredients into a small pot and heat them up. 

Heat it until the butter is all melted. Place the bread cubes in a bowl and pour the butter mixture on top.

Mix it all well, then lay it out on a parchment lined baking sheet. 

Bake at 350 for about ten minutes. Be sure to pull them out at about the five minute mark and shuffle them around a bit so every spot gets crispy. Once done take them out and let cool. Then top your favourite salad with them and enjoy! If you have any left overs they can be stored in an airtight container for about a week. Enjoy!