Quintuple Chocolate Brownies

Another great recipe from Dorie Greenspan, more information will follow but here are some pictures! These taste really great!!

Dad's verdict: 7 out of 10

The recipe for these brownies can be found here, here and here

Strawberry-Guave Cheesecake Cookies

When I stumbled upon this recipe on Leslie's blog (http://thehungryhousewife.blogspot.com/) I instantly knew I had to give these a try. The name alone intrigued me: Strawberry Cheesecake Cookies..... What are they: minicakes? cookies?? They look great, but what will they taste like?

I mostly followed Leslies recipe, with a few adaptations in quantities. This is mainly because I don't have a digital scale.... Also I used strawberry-guave jam instead of plain strawberry, because that's the one I had in my cupboard. I only managed to produce 2 dozen instead of three, I think my portionsize was a bit too big. Because of this I had to bake the cookies for 25 minutes instead of 12-14.

They actually taste great: not too sweet, the edges are nice and sort of crunchy whereas the centre is nice ans soft cake-like. I'm certainly making these again!

Ingredients

½ cup cream cheese, soft
½ cup butter, soft
1 cup sugar
1 egg
¼ tsp salt
¼ tsp baking powder
1 cup flour
Jam(what ever flavor you fancy)

Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, beat together butter and cream cheese. Gradually beat in sugar at medium speed until light and fluffy. Beat in egg and salt. Whisk together baking powder and flour in a small bowl and, mixing by hand or at low speed, add to cream cheese mixture.

Drop by rounded tablespoonfuls onto prepared baking sheet. Bake at 180 for 12-14 minutes, until the bottom edge just barely turns brown. Makes about 3 dozen.

P.S. My pictures aren't the greatest, but bad pictures are better than no pictures at all!!!

Cinnamon Sugar Doughnut Muffins

I love doughnuts, I also love muffins; but what do you think about: Cinnamon Sugar Doughnut Muffins.... Sounds great huh? It is absolutely fantastic! The first attempt was a big succes with my col-workers. The second attempt I added some cinnamon to the batter, because I am a huge fan of cinnamon. This resulted in an actual wedding proposal!


The orginal recipe I found on Laura's beautiful blog: http://laurarebeccaskitchen.blogspot.com/2006/06/cinnamon-sugar-donut-muffins.html

This is my version:

Cinnamon Sugar Donut Muffins (appr. 12 muffins)

Batter
2 cups flour
1 Tbsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
2 large eggs
1 cup plain yogurt
2/3 cup packed brown sugar
4 to 8 tbsp oil
1 tsp vanilla

Topping
1/2 stick butter, melted
1/4 cup sugar
½ tsp cinnamon

Position oven rack in the middle position and preheat oven to 205 degrees Celsius. Line a standard muffin pan with paper cups.Whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon in a large bowl.

In a separate bowl, whisk together eggs, yogurt, sugar, oil, and vanilla. Add flour mixture and mix with light strokes until the dry ingredients are just moistened. Don't overmix; batters should not be smooth.

Divide batter among the muffin cups and bake until a toothpick inserted in one or two of the muffins come out clean, 12-15 minutes.

While the muffins are baking, melt 1/2 stick butter and place in a bowl just large enough to hold a muffin. Combine ½ cup of sugar and 1 tsp. cinnamon in a small, shallow bowl.

As soon as the muffing are done, dip them one at a time in the melted butter and then roll in the sugar mixture.

Set on a rack to cool.