Super Fudgy Brownies

I had tried many different brownie recipes over the years when I stumbled upon a Martha Stewart recipe in 2003 which I modified into an incredibly rich, fudgy brownie. These brownies are like crack and a surefire cure for PMS. I can't tell you how many times I've made them. I don't even bother with other recipes. Be sure to use a good quality chocolate and have lots of milk on hand cause you're gonna need it.



Super Fudgy Brownies

4 oz unsweetened chocolate (I used Ghirardelli)
1 stick unsalted butter
3 large eggs
1.5 cups sugar
2 t. vanilla
1 t. instant espresso powder (optional)
1/2 t. salt
1 C. all-purpose flour

Preheat oven to 375. Place aluminum foil inside of an 8" square pan and mist liberally with non-stick cooking spray.

Cut butter into several chunks and put in a small saucepan. Break the chocolate into chunks and add to the butter. Melt the chocolate over low head, set aside when melted.


In a large mixing bowl, whisk the eggs, sugar, vanilla, salt and espresso powder (if using) until well combined. Stir in the chocolate mixture until fully incorporated. Gently stir in the flour.

Pour into the prepared pan and bake for 20 minutes. The middle of the brownies will still look soft and a bit jiggly when you remove it from the oven. Wait at least 30 - 6o minutes to cut the brownies. It is best to wait as long as possible to cut the brownies since the brownies are very fudgy and the warm brownies will be quite soft.



Makes 12 nice sized servings. Not sure how long they will keep, a few days max. They last about 24 hours in my house.

Texas Sheet Cake

Here is an easy cake to make for a crowd. I make this cake to take to work for birthdays. I started baking this when I was around 12 years old. Ingredients, preparation and cooking times are not difficult or time consuming.

Texas Sheet Cake

Cake

2 C. Flour
2 C. Sugar
1/4 t. Salt
2 Sticks Unsalted Butter
1 C. Water
2 Eggs, beaten
1/2 C. Buttermilk
3 T. Cocoa Powder
1 t. Baking Soda
1 t. Vanilla

Preheat oven to 350. Spray a sheet pan with non-stick cooking spray (I use an 11 x 16 size pan).

Sift flour, sugar and salt together in a large bowl. In a saucepan, melt butter. Add the water and cocoa and bring just to a boil. Pour the chocolate mixture over the flour mixture. In another bowl, mix eggs, baking soda, buttermilk and vanilla. Beat into the flour/chocolate mixture (by hand, no mixer required) until well incorporated.

Spread batter into prepared pan and bake at 350 for 20 minutes. Let the cake cool completely before frosting.

Frosting

1 stick butter
3 T cocoa powder
6 T milk
1 pound box of confectioner's sugar
1 t vanilla
1.5 C walnuts, chopped

In a medium saucepan, melt butter with the cocoa powder and milk over low heat (do not boil). When the butter has completely melted and the ingredients are combined, remove from heat. Immediately add the sugar, vanilla and nuts. Mix well and pour over the cake. Smooth out carefully with a knife. Let the frosting harden up (about 30 minutes) before serving. Cake can be stored, covered until ready to serve.

Since there are no preservatives, this cake is best if consumed within 24 hours of making. You can also cover it and store in the refrigerator where it should last several days. Yields approximately 24 servings.

Apricot & Peach Cream Tart

Well, it has been awhile. I can't believe two months have passed since I posted anything. I've been busy. The weather has been so nice in Austin, so when I haven't been working I've tried to get outside as much as possible. Plus I have a crappy camera, so I'm also using that as an excuse for the lack of recipes.

A couple of weeks ago at the farmers market, several farmers offered Texas peaches. Peaches in May are unheard of for this Ohio girl. I found one stand with peaches and apricots. Oh my, I love apricots. I bought enough to make a tart. The key to this tart is the incredible butter crust. It reminds me of shortbread cookies, crumbly, buttery and sweet. This has been my go to tart crust for years, it is nice baked and stuffed with fruit or lemon curd. You can do many things with this crust. So if you don't like apricots and peaches (and really who doesn't?), at least try the crust.


Apricot & Peach Cream Tart

Crust Ingredients:

1 + 1/2 C. all purpose flour
1/4 C. sugar
1/2 C. butter, cut into cubes
1 egg yolk
1/2 t. vanilla
pinch salt

Place all ingredients into a food processor and whirl it up until the dough is a uniform, crumbly consistency. Press into the bottom and up the sides of a tart pan with a removable bottom. Par bake at 325 for 25 minutes or until golden brown in color. Remove from oven and prepare filling.

crust, prior to baking

Tart Filling:

3 - 4 peaches, peeled and sliced
10 apricots, pitted and sliced
1/2 C. sugar
1/4 C. brown sugar
3 large eggs
1 C. sour cream
1/4 t. cinnamon
1/4 t. nutmeg
1/4 C. chopped almonds

Combine eggs, sour cream and 1/4 cup of the sugar. Beat well and pour into the par baked tart crust. In another bowl gently combine the fruit, remaining sugars, cinnamon and nutmeg. Spread over the top of the tart and scatter the chopped almonds on top.

tart, prior to baking

tart, after baking

Bake at 325 for 45 - 50 minutes or until the custard looks done. Allow the tart to cool for at least an hour and remove the sides of the tart pan. Serve immediately.

Mocha Fudge Pots

I try to limit sweets to weekends, although from reading this blog you might think otherwise. I have a huge sweet tooth. This is the kind of thing you make on a Saturday night or if you are having company over. I pulled this recipe out of Food & Wine Magazine some years back and I never got around to making it. A couple of weeks ago when my husband was running around SxSW like a crazy fool, I took the opportunity to try this out.
Food & Wine call this a chocolate pudding, but it is very dense, thick and rich. More like a chocolate pot. It is very easy to make, you can use a food processor or even a blender to whip this up. Literally takes minutes (plus the chill time).

Mocha Fudge Pots

1/2 cup heavy cream
2 t instant espresso powder
6 oz bittersweet chocolate, chopped (I used Ghirardelli bittersweet chocolate chips)
1/2 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 t vanilla
pinch of salt
fresh whipped cream (for serving).

In a small saucepan, bring the cream and espresso powder to a boil over medium high heat.

Espresso powder in heavy cream

Meanwhile in a food processor, grind the chocolate and sugar until fine. Add the egg, vanilla ans salt and pulse until it forms a paste. With the machine on, slowly pour in the hot cream in a steady stream. Blend until silky, thick and creamy (about 1 minute).

Transfer the pudding into small ramekins (6 oz size or smaller, demitasse cups would be cute for this also). Transfer to the fridge and let set until firm, about one hour or overnight.

Garnish with fresh whipped cream and serve.


Makes about 4 servings.

Banana Pudding

This is my grandma's banana pudding recipe. She used to make this for major family gatherings, like Easter Sunday or a reunion. As you can see from the ingredients list, this is not for anyone counting calories as it uses a frightening amount of heavy whipping cream and an entire can of sweetened condensed milk. When I was newly married, my grandma mailed me the recipe so I could make it whenever I wanted.

Banana Pudding

1 can of sweetened condensed milk (14 oz)
1 1/2 cups of cold water
small package of instant vanilla pudding (4 serving size)
1 pint heavy whipping cream (this measures 2 cups)
3-4 bananas
vanilla wafers
juice of half a lemon

In a large mixing bowl, combine water, sweetened condensed milk and the vanilla pudding. Mix until well combined. Place pudding mixture in the fridge to chill for five minutes.

Meanwhile, whip the heavy cream until stiff peaks form.


Peel and slice the bananas into uniform slices. Squeeze the lemon juice all over the banana slices.
Take several vanilla wafers and carefully place them along the sides and bottom of a large bowl.
place a layer of sliced bananas over the bottom of the bowl.

Remove the pudding mixture from the fridge, carefully fold in the heavy whipping cream. The mixture should feel light, almost like a mousse. Place about one-third of the pudding mixture over the bananas. Continue layering the vanilla wafers, bananas and pudding until you've made three or four layers. Save enough pudding to make a final layer and sprinkle some crumbled vanilla wafers on top.
Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for several hours. I like to make this the day before serving or at least 8 - 12 hours in advance. The pudding tastes better when the vanilla wafers have time to soak up the pudding and get soft.

This makes about 8 - 10 servings. It probably keeps 3-4 days but it never lasts that long at my house.

Molten Chocolate Lava Cakes

I had a chunk of Valrhona in my pantry and I found a good use for it last night. Valrhona is a high grade French chocolate, I use it for cooking and baking. It is more expensive than regular baking chocolate, but not outrageously so and it is certainly worth the price as the quality is superb.

I kind of forgot about this recipe and haven't made it in a long time. I am not sure where I picked this recipe up, I scrawled the recipe down on a piece of notebook paper and I keep it in my 3-ring "sweets" binder. It does not require very many ingredients, but you should use good quality bittersweet chocolate. In a pinch, I have used semi sweet chocolate chips instead of bittersweet chocolate. The better the chocolate, the more rich the dessert will be.

I assembled the ingredients for this before I put steaks on the grill. I whipped it up after dinner and by the time we had the kitchen cleaned up, dessert was ready.

Molten Chocolate Lava Cakes

1 stick butter
1 T. flour + 1 t. flour
4 oz chopped bittersweet chocolate (semi sweet may be substituted)
2 large eggs
2 egg yolks
1/4 C. sugar
pinch of salt

Preheat oven to 450.
Line a muffin tin with 4 - 6 foil muffin liners. I like to use the big foil muffin liners, so I usually only make 4 large molten chocolate lava cakes. You could use smaller liners and make 6 small lava cakes (but that would be sad, go for the bigger size).

Spray the foil muffin liners (if using) generously with non-stick spray. Alternatively, you could butter several ramekins but I found the foil liners much easier to handle.

Over a low flame, melt the butter and chocolate together, set aside.


Meanwhile beat the eggs, egg yolks, sugar and salt until light and thick. You can use your mixer or do this by hand with a whisk. Add the melted chocolate and mix well to combine. Stir in the flour. Divide among the muffin tins or ramekins and bake at 450 for 6- 7 minutes. The centers should still look a bit jiggly when you get these out of the oven, that is OK.


Let the cakes sit for at least 5 minutes before plating and serving. Excellent with vanilla ice cream or coffee flavored gelato. Best served warm.

Butter Cookies

I'm giving Paula Deen and Ina Garten a run for the money in the butter department with this post. A couple of years ago, I took a holiday baking class at the Midwest Culinary Institute in Cincinnati. The teacher was one of the former owners of the Virgina Bakery. The Virginia Bakery was a Cincinnati institution on Ludlow Avenue in Clifton for many years. Sadly, it closed in 2000. This recipe was one of the recipes we learned to make. I like this recipe because it yields a large amount of cookie dough and I get to measure flour and sugar with my kitchen scale. Measuring with a scale is much more precise than measuring with measuring cups. Plus it is an excuse to acquire another kitchen gadget. This butter cookie has a wonderful, rich buttery taste. Great for your holiday party tray.

The recipe yields a whopping four pounds of cookie dough. I have no idea how many cookies you will get out of this recipe - it depends on the size and shape of the cookies you roll and cut out. The dough freezes well, so you could make a batch of this to have on hand for upcoming holiday events. Just divide it up and freeze it.

Butter Cookies

1 pound butter (4 sticks, unsalted butter, at room temperature)
1 pound sugar
2 eggs
2 t. vanilla
1 pound, 8 oz. all purpose flour
1 t. baking powder
1 t. salt



With a kitchen scale, weigh out the dry ingredients. Mix the flour, baking powder and salt together in a large bowl and set aside.


In a stand mixer, cream together the butter and the sugar at low speed for 3 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl a couple of times during this process. Beat in two eggs and the vanilla.
Sift in the dry ingredients, one cup at a time until combined. Be careful, do not overmix the dough.
At this point, you can immediately roll the dough out and bake it. I prefer to shape the dough into a ball and refrigerate until chilled.

When you are ready to bake the cookies, roll the dough out onto a floured surface and cut into shapes. Roll the dough about 1/8" thick. I like to roll out a small amount of dough and cut out 4 -5 cookies at a time. Bake at 350 for approximately 10- 12 minutes or until the bottom of the cookies are light brown. Cool completely and frost as desired. I usually use Martha Stewart's royal icing recipe or a milk fondant icing to dip the cookies in.
The dough freezes well and will keep in the freezer for up to 8 weeks.

Souped Up Tiny Apple Crisp

This is an easy dessert to throw together after work. It can serve one person very generously or two people. I had some leftover Kraft caramels and I got creative on the topping.

If you have one apple and a few ingredients, you could enjoy this warm from the oven with minimal work. I usually don't even measure the ingredients, just eyeball what I need and throw it together.

Apple Crisp

1 large green apple, peeled and chopped fine
3 T butter melted
1/4 C flour
1/4 C oatmeal
1/4 C chopped walnuts
1/2 t cinnamon
1/4 t salt
1/4 t nutmeg

10 Kraft caramels
1 t half and half

Preheat oven to 375
Spray a small baking dish with nonstick spray.

Peel the apple, chop it into small little bits and put in the bottom of your baking dish. Melt the butter and mix the flour, oatmeal, walnuts, spices and salt in. The topping mixture will be crumbly. Sprinkle all over the apples.

Caramel topping (optional): Unwrap the Kraft caramels and place them in a microwave safe bowl. Add the half and half and microwave until melted, about 45 seconds or so. Stir well and pour over the top of the apple crisp.

Bake for approximately 35 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool a bit before serving it with a big scoop of vanilla.

Makes 2 servings or 1 gigantic serving.

Pumpkin & Maple Cream Cheese Bundt Cake

This is a nice little cake to make when there is a nip in the air. And today was such a day in Austin. It was gray, dreary and chilly. Just the right kind of day to bust out the canned pumpkin. I have been experimenting with this recipe for a couple of years now. It has been hard to get the maple cream cheese center just right. Today's cake turned out nicely.

This is really nice for dessert or in the morning with a nice cup of coffee. This cake takes a little bit of prep work and you have to dirty a few bowls. Totally worth it.

Pumpkin & Maple Cream Cheese Bundt Cake

Maple Cream Cheese:

12 oz cream cheese, softened
1/4 C. sugar
1/4 C brown sugar
6 T maple syrup
2 T flour
1 egg

Pumpkin Bundt Cake:

2 C. all purpose flour
1 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
1 t pumpkin pie spice
8 oz canned pumpkin
1/2 C veg or canola oil
2 eggs
1 & 1/2 C sugar
1 C chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 350. Spray a bundt pan with non stick spray. In a mixing bowl combine all of the maple cream cheese ingredients. Beat until smooth and set aside.

In a separate bowl, mix together the flour, baking soda, salt and pumpkin pie spice. Set aside. In the bowl of your mixer, mix together the canned pumpkin, vegetable oil, eggs and sugar. Mix for one minute until well combined. Gradually add in the dry ingredients (mixing on low speed). Add the walnuts and combine gently.


Spoon about half of the pumpkin batter in the prepared bundt pan. Pour all of cream cheese mixture on top. Gently spoon the remaining pumpkin batter on top of the cream cheese.

Bake at 350 for about 45-50 minutes. Check with a wooden toothpick for doneness (toothpick should come out clean or with few crumbs attached).
Cool completely before running your knife around the top of the bundt pan. Place a large plate on top of the bundt pan and gently flip it over. If desired, drizzle glaze over the cake. Makes 12 servings.