TWD: Brrrr-ownies

Karen of Welcome to our Crazy Blessed Life selected Brrrr-ownies for this weeks challenge for Tuesdays with Dorie was just that: a challenge! And it was a challenge on three parts. The first part was knowing that I wasn't going to like these: I'm not a fan of the mint/chocolate combination. However several colleagues are, therefor I decided to go ahead and make these anyway. The second problem was figuring out what York Peppermint Patties were, after I figured that out I knew we didn't have them here/ So I picked the next best thing: After Eight!

The second challenge that arose was actually making the brownies, everything that could have gone wrong did: I was out of eggs! So I popped over to the supermarket and arrived just in time: 1 minute before closing time!! Upon arriving home I discovered that I was also out of unsweetened chocolate, since the shop had already closed I simply decided to sub it with more bittersweet chocolate. When it was time to add the After Eight to the batter I managed to drop the bowl into the batter too!

Ofcourse I had to taste the brownies: they would have been perfect, if it hadn't been for that strong mint flavor.... However my mint/chocolate-loving coworkers absolutely adored these!!!

If you do like mint and chocolate together, be sure to take a look at the recipe over at Karen's! Also take a check out the posts of the other TWD-ers!

P.S. In a couple of weeks I'm gonna visit Paris, so if you have any suggestions of shops, chocolatiers, restaurants or other hot spots I should visit: please leave them in a comment below!

TWD: White Chocolate Brownies

Welcome to a very special edition of Tuesdays with Dorie! You might wonder why this one is so special, well it's because I finally got to pick the recipe! Yay!! But picking one recipe wasn't as easy as I thought it would be, there were still so many good recipes left! With the help from my mom I finally narrowed it down to the White Chocolate Brownies on pages 110 and 111 of Baking from My Home to Yours, which I'm sure pleased CB a lot as she'd been trying to bribe all the members of TWD to vote on the White Chocolate Brownies when we all got to pick the second anniversary recipe for Tuesdays with Dorie last January.

Reading through the P&Q for the brownies I found out that I had picked a recipe that was a bit controversial: lots of talk about good raspberries being difficult to find and very expensive, meringue-haters and problems with undercooked brownies. So you can imagine I really wanted these brownies to work. Unfortunately my first batch came out a disaster: the brownies were still gooey and undercooked after an extra 40 minutes in the oven and the meringue was overcooked and too chewwy.

I decided to give the brownies another try and used blueberries instead since I was out of raspberries. Lack of orange forced me to leave the orange zest out and by now I was also out of almonds so I subbed them with more flour.

In the P&Q Jacque of Daisy Lane Cake suggested to bake the brownies first and then add the meringue, so that's exactly what I did. I lined a cupcake pan with liners and filled 24 liners half full, these were baked for 20 minutes and cooled to room temperature. I then topped them with the meringue and baked them for another 10 minutes: Perfect!

These brownies were delicious, but I must admit that their texture was more cake-like! A tad sweet, but I didn't mind about that: I have major sweet tooth! Don't forget to check out what my fellow TWD-ers thought of the White Chocolate Brownies!

White Chocolate Brownies

makes 32 brownies

White Chocolate, orange zest and lots of fresh raspberries make these brownies delicious; topping them with meringue makes them glamorous. The cake layer is slender, delightfully dense and both sweet and tart; the meringue is soft and golden. You can call them brownies, but serve them with a swirl of raspberry coulis and they'll be worthy of a black-tie gala.

For the brownies:

2/3 cup all-purpose flour

½ cup finely ground almonds

½ teaspoon salt

1 stick (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter, cut into 8 pieces

4 ounces premium-quality white chocolate, coarsely chopped

1 cup sugar

2 teaspoons grated orange zest

4 large eggs

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 cup fresh raspberries

For the meringue:

3 large egg whites, at room temperature

Pinch of salt

½ cup sugar

Confectioners' sugar, for dusting

Getting ready

Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.

Butter a 9-x-13-inch pan, line the bottom with parchment or wax paper, butter the paper and dust the bottom and sides of the pan with flour; tap out the excess. Put the pan on a baking sheet.

To make the brownies

Whisk together the flour, ground almonds and salt.

Set a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of only-just-simmering water. Put the butter in the bowl, top with the chopped chocolate and stir frequently until the ingredients are just melted—you don't want them to get so hot that the butter or the white chocolate separates. (White chocolate is finicky, so don't leave the kitchen while it's over the heat—too much heat and it will fall apart or scorch.) Remove the bowl from the pan of water.

Working in the bowl of a stand mixer or in another large bowl, rub the sugar and orange zest together with your fingers until the sugar is moist and aromatic. Add the eggs and, with the paddle or whisk attachment, or with a hand mixer, beat on medium-high speed for about 3 minutes, or until pale and foamy. Beat in the vanilla. Reduce the mixer speed to low and blend in the melted butter and chocolate. Still working on low, mix in the dry ingredients, stirring only until they disappear into the batter. Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and sprinkle the raspberries evenly over the batter. Set aside while you make the meringue.

To make the meringue

In the cleaned mixer bowl with the (clean) whisk attachment, or in another large bowl with cleaned beaters, beat the egg whites with the salt on medium speed until they are foamy and just turn opaque. Increase the mixer speed to medium-high and add the sugar in a slow, steady stream. Whip the whites until they form firm but still glossy peaks.

Gently spread the meringue over the brownie batter.

Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, or until the meringue is browned and crackly and the brownies pull away from the sides of the pan. Transfer the pan to a rack and allow to cool to room temperature in the pan.

Cover a cooling rack with a piece of parchment or wax paper, or a silicone baking mat, dust the paper or mat with confectioners' sugar and very gently, so you don't squish the meringue, turn the brownies out onto the rack. Peel away the parchment paper lining and carefully invert the brownies onto a cutting board. Cut into 32 bars, each roughly 2¼ x 11½ inches.

Serving

Dust the squares with additional confectioners' sugar if you think they need it and serve as is or with Raspberry Coulis

Storing

Kept in the pan and covered lightly with plastic wrap, the brownies can be kept at room temperature overnight. The meringue makes these fragile (and unfreezable). If you omit the meringue, you can wrap the brownies airtight and keep them at room temperature for up to 3 days and frozen for up to 2 months.

TWD: Brownie Buttons

Don't forget to enter my Giveaway and/or the Gift Exchange:
the deadline for the Blogoversary Giveaway is August 14th,
the deadline for the Gift Exchange is August 30th.


Easy to make, delicious to eat and the perfect size: Brownie Buttons for TWD.
These Brownie Buttons were picked by Jayma of Two Scientists Experimenting in the Kitchen.
They only take 15 minutes in the oven!

Almost forgot to take a picture of the Brownie Buttons before taking them to work, this is the best I could do for now, they're all gone! Next time I´ll have to double the recipe!!!

This made 12 Brownie Buttons for me, so that´s 3 WW Points per Button.
Correction: 3,5 WW Points per Button......

Check out what my fellow TWD-ers thought of the Brownie Buttons here.

My big 30th Birthday High Tea Party

This was it, Sunday I finally turned 30 and had a wonderfull party outside my apartmentbuilding with lots of my friends and family.

Hours of preparation went into this party searching the Internet for great recipes to make just for this occasion, I even had a give-away back in April to inquire what other bloggers thought I should serve. Some of the suggestions made it and some didn't....

These strawberry cupcakes were made by me earlier this month for Taste & Create, only without the original topping, recipe to be found here. I had run out of butter so I had to come up with my own version, here's what I did:

Creamcheese frosting

200 grams cream cheese at room temperature

2 tablespoons raspberry-flavoured liqueur
1 cup powdered sugar

17 strawberries

Place cream cheese, liqueur in a medium bowl and powdered sugar in a bowl and beat just until blended. Cut thestrawberries in half. Top each cupcake with a dollop of creamcheese frosting and garnish cake with strawberry halves.

The miniature tiramisu cupcakes were such a huge succes at work back in May, that I instantly knew I had to make them again.

Shelby of The Life and Loves of Grumpy's Honeybunch suggested that I make Cucumber Sandwiches. Instead of going for the traditional sandwiches I opted for these cuties, here's what I did:

Open-faced Cucumber Sandwiches

2 packs of party bread (I found these presliced at my supermarket, of course you could use rolls or baguette)

200 grams cream cheese at room temperature

1 clove of garlic, very finely chopped

1 tbsp Rosa Maria Dipper (herb mixture from Oil & Vinegar, also available in U.S.A. and other countries!!)

salt and pepper to taste

1 cucumber

dill, chopped

Mix the cream cheese with the garlic and Rosa Maria Dipper, add salt and pepper to taste. Slice the cucumber into thin slices. Divide the cream cheese mixture over the slices of bread, put one slice of cucumber on each sandwich and sprinkle some dill on top.

Chicken and Salmon wraps, easily made and gone in 60 seconds.

From left to right: Dorie's Cinnamon Squares, Ina's Lemon Cake and Ina's Outreagous Brownies.

These Cranberry Scones were amazing, my mom actually made them after the recipe suggested by Steph from Obsessed with Baking. They were quite easily put together, we left out the orange glaze and served them with orange marmalade, strawberry jam and Clotted Cream from Devonshire. Delicious!!

I also served two fruit salads: one with red fruits and one with green/yellow fruits, but I forgot to take pictures!!!
As the following pictures show we had a lovely afternoon with great weather!

I hope all my birthdays to come will be equally wonderful!!

TWD: a Tribute to Katharine Hepburn Brownies

This weeks recipe actually hasn't been picked by a member of TWD, Lisa of Surviving Oz was the Logo Contest Winner, she designed the gorgeous new logo above this subsection for TWD and consequently got to pick this weeks recipe. Lisa choose a Tribute to Katharine Hepburn Brownies. Lisa was a bit nervous about baking these as she had some baking mishaps in the past, but I think her brownies look amazing, to check out Lisa's brownies and the recipe, go here.

This worked out perfectly for me as I had no brownies leftover from Sunday to into work to celebrate my birthday with my coworkers. I only used one tablespoon of espresso powder as I'm not crazy about coffee-flavoured brownies. Also I made some other small changes , as suggested by Caitlin of Engineer Baker in the P&Q: I cut the butter by 1 tablespoon and increased the flour to 1/3 cup. This worked perfectly! Prebaking the batter was very thick.

At first I was a bit disappointed with these brownies: they didn't seem to rise at all..... But the flavour was phenomenal, so nice and fudgey and chocolatey: delicious! And they are so easily put together with only one pot to dirty: perfect! My colleagues loved them, they were gone within seconds!!

Dorie wants us to cut the slab of brownies into 1 pieces, this would work out to 5,5 WW point per piece. Given that I wanted to serve these High Tea-style I cut them into 36 bite-size pieces, which means only 2,5 WW points per piece!!!

To see what my fellow TWD-bakers thought of the brownies, go here.

TWD: Chipster-Topped Brownie Disaster

Beth of Supplicious decided on Chipster-Topped Brownie for this weeks recipe. I wish I could tell you all that I loved this recipe, or even that I didn't really like it but unfortunately I haven't even had a nibble to taste the brownies.

I actually made this recipe one and a half weeks ago, I was invited for dinner over at a friends house and told her I'd bring dessert. The brownie batter looked quite bubbly.

The cookie dough looked good and tasted delicious!!

When I tried to divide the cookie batter over the brownie batter the cookie batter immediately sunk to the bottom.....

However I continued and popped the brownie/cookie batter into the oven, baked it for 55 minutes and took the brownie out of the oven when my cake tester came out with only faint streaks of chocolate, as indicated by Dorie. The top was dry, a bit hard and had a huge crack.

Something must have gone wrong as I found out it was still way too liquid inside when I started to cut into the brownies after cooling them during the day. A total disaster for me, the first I might add since I started baking. I couldn’t even salvage the smallest piece…

So no yummy brownies for my friends at dinner, instead I made a quick stop at the supermarket and bought some a tub of Ben & Jerry's Cookie Dough.

Check out if my fellow TWD-ers had more succes with the Chipster-Topped Brownie here!

Milky Way Brownies

While still working at the insurance company one of my coworkers approached me. He really enjoyed sampling my baked goods on a weekly base and wanted to share a recipe with me that was featured in his local newspaper: de Leeuwarder Courant.





Well, it took me a while, but I finally got around to making it today! I intended to make the Floating Islands for last Tuesdays with Dorie, but upon reading the recipe I found out I lacked two crucial things: a) a (candy) thermometer that reaches up to 180 degrees and b) sufficient funds to buy previously described thermometer. Said thermometer is also needed for next weeks recipe: Devils Food White Out Cake, so I won't be making that one either....



This one's for you Marcel, thank you so much for the recipe.
These brownies are a real treat. They look cute heavy and dry, but in fact
they are nice and light. Instead of Milky Ways you could also use a different candy bar,
such as Mars.






Milky Way Brownies
125 grams butter (about 1 stick)
4 Milky Way bars
60 grams sugar
1 tsp vanilla sugar
2 eggs
110 gram flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

Preheat the oven at 175 degrees Celsius. Line a square pan with parchment paper.

Cut the Milky Way bars into pieces and melt them in a pan on lo heat with the butter. Keep an eye on the mixture and keep stirring to avoid lumps. Don't let the mixture get too hot.

Take the mixture of the heat and mix in the sugar and vanilla sugar. Mix in the eggs, one egg at a time, the flour, the baking powder and the salt.

Pour the brownie mixture into the pan and bake for about 25 minutes.

Let the brownies cool down, cut into sqaures and serve with dusted with lots of confectioner's sugar or a drizzle of caramel sauce. Enjoy!!!!

TWD: Caramel Pecan-Topped Brownie Cake

Miniature bundt cakes made of brownie and topped with caramel and pecan.... Heaven!!

Just some pictures to look at, I'm way too tired too type at the moment: more info will follow tomorrow!! Recipe can be found at Wee Treats by Tammy.

Okay, so here's my review... Finally!!
I didn't use peanuts, I still had some pecans lying around in the house and thought that they would work perfectly with the caramel sauce, which they did! I had some problems getting my sauce to the right colour and eventually gave up because I was supposed to visit a friend and wanted to bring these along. The cake was a bit too dry for my taste, but fortunately the caramel sauce took care of that!

Overall: I would definetely make this again, but probably take the cake out of the oven a bit earlier. Dad's verdict: 8,5 out of 10.