TWD: French Chocolate Brownies

Fruit? Good.
Chocolate? Good.
Fruit and Chocolate together? Not good.

Or so I used to think. You know how it is… it’s hard to shake your childhood palette sometimes. In my head, some things just aren’t supposed to go together and to illustrate that… I present the following evidence…
Russell Stover’s Boxed Chocolates.

Oh sure, they are innocent looking enough, with all the deliciously draped milk and dark chocolates. But beneath that luscious, silky chocolate… lies potential secret grossness. Oh, sure there are a couple in there that have caramel in them.. (my bet was always on the milk chocolate square shaped ones… and I was usually right) and there are a few nutty type ones that were good. But, the majority of these are filled with yucky orange, strawberry, lemon, or raspberry creams. Presenting a tastebud game of roulette that I could never resist, but always regretted (sounds eerily familiar to the vegas roulette, no?).

Whenever I hear of chocolate and fruit, I think back to those chocolates.

There was one exception though. The cordial cherry. For whatever reason, a chocolate covered cherry got a free pass in my culinary world. My argument would be that the chocolate didn’t actually touch the cherry… the syrupy goodness served as a buffer between the two.

As I’ve grown older, I’ve slowly warmed up to some fruit and chocolate marriages. For instance… chocolate covered strawberries. While, I’d probably enjoy them more, if they were separately on their own, I do like chocolate covered strawberries and will eat them happily.

So, when I first saw that Di of Di's Kitchen Notebook chose something called French Chocolate Brownies, I was initially very excited. Yum. Brownies. Then I read the recipe…

RAISINS? WITH CHOCOLATE? WHO EATS RAISINS AND CHOCOLATE TOGETHER??

… oh yeah…apparently lots of people do (raisinetes. duh). And then I realized… my palette has grown, but it hasn’t grown quite that far yet. So, instead of raisins, I subbed dried cherries. Problem solved. .
The only other issue I had with the recipe, is that while I do love rum, rum doesn’t love me. In fact, it hates my body so much, that I can have one rum and coke and about 15 minutes later… well… I’ll just leave it with the comment, that I need a ponytail holder close by. I realize that by baking with rum, I’d not have a problem… but, I didn’t want to make a special trip to the liquor store to buy a mini bottle of rum (basically, because instead of leaving with just the one mini bottle of rum, I’d presumably leave with 5-6 bottles of wine, some tequila and maybe some vodka, oh yeah and hopefully I wouldn’t forget that mini bottle of rum. Okay, you’re right, I would). At first I thought, well I’ll just plump the cherries in some water and skip the flambéed part. But, I started snooping around in my cabinets and fridge looking for a sufficient cherry plumper. That’s when I saw the unfinished bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon sitting on my counter. People drink wine with chocolate, don’t they? So, that’s what I used instead of rum.

These brownies are what I would call sophisticated brownies. These are the type of brownies that you’d bake for your significant other’s snooty sister that lives in some up and coming chic neighborhood outside of Seattle or Chicago or Austin or something. You know what I mean… these are pretentious brownies. They present a multi-leveled flavor buffet for your palette. I think it has more to do with the cinnamon than anything else. I’ve never had cinnamon with chocolate, and the jurys still out on whether or not I actually like the two together.

Try these brownies sometime when you are looking to serve something that looks simple, but tastes different. I might make these again sometime, especially as a dessert for a wine tasting party or something.

Be sure to check out everyone elses over at Tuesdays with Dorie.


French Chocolate Brownies
- makes 16 brownies -Adapted from Baking From My Home to Yours.


Ingredients
1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1/8 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon cinnamon (optional)

1/3 cup raisins, dark or golden

1 1/2 tablespoons water

1 1/2 tablespoons dark rum

6 ounces bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped

1 1/2 sticks (12 tablespoons; 6 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature and cut into 12 pieces

3 large eggs, at room temperature

1 cup sugar


Getting ready: Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 300°F. Line an 8-inch square baking pan with foil, butter the foil, place the pan on a baking sheet, and set aside.


Whisk together the flour, salt and cinnamon, if you're using it.


Put the raisins in a small saucepan with the water, bring to a boil over medium heat and cook until the water almost evaporates. Add the rum, let it warm for about 30 seconds, turn off the heat, stand back and ignite the rum. Allow the flames to die down, and set the raisins aside until needed.


Put the chocolate in a heatproof bowl and set the bowl over a saucepan of simmering water. Slowly and gently melt the chocolate, stirring occasionally. Remove the bowl from the saucepan and add the butter, stirring so that it melts. It's important that the chocolate and butter not get very hot. However, if the butter is not melting, you can put the bowl back over the still-hot water for a minute. If you've got a couple of little bits of unmelted butter, leave them—it's better to have a few bits than to overheat the whole. Set the chocolate aside for the moment.
Working with a stand mixer with the whisk attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the eggs and sugar until they are thick and pale, about 2 minutes. Lower the mixer speed and pour in the chocolate-butter, mixing only until it is incorporated—you'll have a thick, creamy batter. Add the dry ingredients and mix at low speed for about 30 seconds—the dry ingredients won't be completely incorporated and that's fine. Finish folding in the dry ingredients by hand with a rubber spatula, then fold in the raisins along with any liquid remaining in the pan.
Scrape the batter into the pan and bake 50 to 60 minutes, or until the top is dry and crackled and a knife inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Transfer the pan to a rack and allow the brownies to cool to warm or room temperature.


Carefully lift the brownies out of the pan, using the foil edges as handles, and transfer to a cutting board. With a long-bladed knife, cut the brownies into 16 squares, each roughly 2 inches on a side, taking care not to cut through the foil.


Serving: The brownies are good just warm or at room temperature; they're even fine cold. I like these with a little something on top or alongside—good go-alongs are whipped crème fraiche or whipped cream, ice cream or chocolate sauce or even all three!


Storing: Wrapped well, these can be kept at room temperature for up to 3 days or frozen for up to 2 months.

Brownie Peanut Butter Cups

Ohhhhh... Jennifer . I don't know you. But somehow... somehow, you manage to read my mind. Somehow you manage to post the most delicious looking chocolatey, peanut buttery, pecan-filled, hazelnut laced recipes and for that, I thank you. I also hope that you find imitation to be a form of flattery instead of a nuisance, since I tend to make the recipes you've blogged about and then immediately put them on my blog, as well.

Digressing... I know that I've gone on ad nauseum about how much I love chocolate and peanut butter together. So, I won't go into the fact that it's a veritable divine partnership of flavors. No, I'm just going to say that if you, too, like Chocolate and Peanut Butter together... then you should try this recipe.

Supernatural Brownies

I have a bad habit. Whenever I find a recipe for something that I like, I generally feel like I don't want to try any other recipes. Like, other recipes aren't going to be better, right? Well, this is something that I definitely need to get over. As made apparent to me by these brownies.

I saw this recipe on Jennifer's Blog and immediately printed the recipe out. But, it's been sitting in my recipe folder since then. For whatever reason, I don't bake brownies that often. Probably because I know how dangerously tempting they are.

This weekend I'm heading to Isle of Palms, SC for my friend Leigh's Bachelorette Weekend Extravaganza. I volunteered to bring baked goodies and I thought some brownies would be the perfect goody, since they travel well (we're talking a 9 hour drive, folks). I went through my recipe folder and picked this recipe and thought... hmmm.. "well I have all the ingredients.. maybe they'll be okay."

Holy crap!!!!! These brownies are delicious! I mean seriously. Moist and fudgy and chewy all at the same time! And incredibly simple to make!! (I just zap my chocolate and butter in the microwave, instead of using the double boiler method).

I baked them in a glass 9x13 inch pan that I had laid a piece of parchment paper in (so that I could lift the brownies out of the pan and cut them easily) for about 40 minutes, but I started checking at 35 minutes. Nobody likes an overcooked brownie, right? After I let them cool on a wire rack, I pulled them out of the pan by the parchment paper and trimmed all the edges off. Nobody likes to see the edges, right? (Okay, I'm totally lying, I don't cut the edges off for aesthetic reasons, I actually cut the edges off, because that's my favorite part and so I gobble that up immediately and just use the excuse... ohhhh the edges are so ugly and you just can't serve brownies with an ugly edge! It's a good thing that I don't own this pan).

Now I understand the title of these brownies... They certainly are Supernatural! I can't wait to serve them this weekend!

Chocolate Stuffed Peanut Butter Brownies

Halloween. What a great holiday. You get to dress up and people give you candy. I mean, what genius thought that up??? Brilliant! But, when you become an adult and no one you know throws a costume party, the best part of halloween is... getting candy for 50% & 75% off. I stocked up this year, with the intention of using the candy in some recipes!

The first recipe I came up with is for something I printed awhile back. It's for Chocolate Stuffed Peanut Butter Brownies. They are basically peanut butter cookies made in bar form with bits of reese peanut butter cups and chocolate chips (I used cut up hershey bars).

Let me take a moment to talk about peanut butter. I like peanut butter, but I'm not crazy over it, unless it has chocolate with it. The mixture of chocolate and peanut butter is awesome, but I'm not one to just eat peanut butter cookies. I mean I'll eat them, but I won't choose them over chocolate cookies. So, these brownies were an interesting pick for me. They are super rich and pretty gooey, but yummy! I think if I make them again, I might add more chocolate to the recipe, but overall. A delicious take on brownies and a great way to use up Reese Peanut Butter Cups and hersey bars!

Ugghh.... sometimes I hate blogger, like when it won't accept new paragraphs. Uggh..

Rich & Dark Brownies

So, Friday I closed on my first home! A cute 1 bedroom, 1 bath condo in Midtown and I couldn't be happier! Once I get my kitchen all squared away this week, I'll post some photos! But for now, I'm limited to what can be microwaved or cooked on the stove or in the oven that doesn't require refrigeration or freezing. Although, that issue will be remedied tonight when my refrigerator is delivered! Yay!

This has been a long process, I first reserved this unit back in April of 2005. And so yesterday, in the midst of running, shopping, putting an entertainment center together, packing, doing laundry, and moving, I decided to bake some brownies to mail to my Realtor's office and my Banker's office. They were both really great and answered all my dumb questions without making me feel like I was asking dumb questions and I wanted to show my appreciation.

The Nashville newspaper, The Tennessean, recently asked readers for Brownie submissions. Now, the print edition came out in last week's Food Section, but being the wonderfully connected person that she is, Anna, over at Cookie Madness somehow got a hold of the recipe the week prior and made them. So, after seeing how hers turned out, I cut the recipe out of the paper and whipped them up this weekend.

They are delicious and extremely easy! Normally, I like chewy, thick brownies. But these brownies are fudgey. But they are so good, I mean really rich and gummy, but still light. Hard to explain, but these will definitely be made again, next time I might add some chocolate chunks to the batter, just for some added chocolate.

Rich & Dark Brownies
from Wanda Thompson, printed from the Tennessean

2 sticks of butter
4 1 oz squares of unsweetened chocolate
3/4 cup of semi sweet morsels (I actually used 1/2 cup and then 1/4 cup milk chocolate)
4 beaten eggs
2 cups of sugar
1 cup plain flour
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup of nuts (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 13x9 inch pan.

Combine butter and both chocolates in a saucepan and slowly melt on top of stove, stirring frequently.

Separately in a bowl combine the eggs and sugar and mix well (she said to use a mixer, but I dont have one and I just beat with a whisk for awhile and that worked fine). Now, if you like a shiny, cracked top on your brownies, you need to do this step for awhile. Beating the eggs with the sugar really well is what produces the shiny, cracked top on a brownie.

Add the flour and vanilla to the sugar and eggs and mix to combine. Once the butter and chocolate have melted, make sure it isn't too hot and pour into your bowl. Stir to combine. Pour into greased pan and bake for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes check the brownies and turn down to 325. Bake for 5 more minutes and then check doneness.

Once cooled, use a plastic knife to cut the brownies (keeps things cleaner).

Orange-ies

I've had this recipe printed ever since I saw Paula Deen make them on her show. I love Paula Deen's recipes. I've made a ton of her cookies, cakes, etc. Hell, she practically catered my friend April's bridal shower... I used like 3-4 of her recipes for that party (all delicious). And this one doesn't disappoint either.

The thing is though... I didn't really get a big orange flavor from it, it was more of a citrusy-lemon flavor. Really refreshing though and definitely the texture of chewy brownies. It features a cream cheese icing which is of course delicious. It was a nice summery dessert for my family's cookout this afternoon. Try it when you are craving a refreshing but rich citrus dessert.

I made a half recipe in a circle pan and then I used a biscuit cutter to cut out little rounds and then sliced them in half to serve.

I also thawed a bunch of my previously made cookies and brownies for dessert, too.

Brownies

I have never, not once considered making brownies from scratch. Why? Because of this: I've found that brownie mixes are so delicious... why bother with trying to make them from scratch?

Well, I decided that it would be nice to have a recipe for homemade brownies (even if they aren't likely to be as good as the mixes). So, I found a recipe on Cookie Madness for these brownies. She had lots of brownie recipes, but I chose these because I already had all the ingredients. And 28 minutes was wayyy too long to cook these brownies (at least for my taste), I should have taken them out after about 20-22, I think. I like my brownies moist and slightly undercooked. Mine were dry and overcooked. Damn.

I will try these again, I think though. They were easy and they make huge, thick brownies... I just wish I hadn't overcooked them.