Brownies with Peanut Butter Caramel

I am about to lose my mind - it is the middle of June and I can't remember the last day the sun was REALLY out. As I write this, it is 3:45 in the afternoon and 55 degrees out. And cloudy. And rainy. Two nights ago I finally broke down and brought my winter blanket back to bed. Meanwhile I am supposed to be training for various bike rides I signed up for this summer. Instead, I am staying inside, where it is warm-ish, and baking (and eating). Like these brownies, for example.


I'm discovering that I may be a bit of a chocolate wuss. With all of my brownie-experimentation lately, I am finding that my favorites have been a little bit light on chocolate. This time around I used David Lebovitz's recipe for his Dulce de Leche Brownies, then modified the dulce de leche with some peanut butter. The brownies were of the fudgy variety, and were so chocolately they were almost black. They were truly amazing, but I think that next time I will go back to these or these.

I followed DL's brownie recipe to the letter, so I won't re-copy it here. For the peanut butter caramel variety, just replace the dulce to leche in the recipe with the following:

Peanut Butter Caramel

- 1 can sweetened condensed milk
- 1/2 cup peanut butter (natural-style works fine, if not better - not quite as sweet)

Mix together in pan over medium heat until well combined. Continue to warm, stirring constantly, for about 5 minutes. Remove from heat and use as directed in brownie recipe. This recipe makes much more than is needed for the 8x8 pan of brownies. I plan on using my left-overs on ice cream, but there would certainly be enough for a 9x13 batch instead.

Perfect Brownies?

I may have finally found a brownie recipe that satisfies my craving for brownies from a box. The texture was perfect! They are chewy and chocolatey but not at all damp - they are neither cakey or fudgy - they are just exactly how I want them! However, in the name of full disclosure I must confess that I had a horrible cold, complete with plugged nose, when I made these, so my taste buds were probably not performing at full capacity. (I suppose I will simply need to make them again soon to reassess their superb-ness.) I found the recipe in my weird old Pillsbury cookbook, then I modified it just a bit. I thought the photo in the book looked promising and so I left the essentials alone. You could mix the pecans into the brownies, but I prefer leaving them on the top so that they stay crunchy rather than becoming soggy.

Chewy Brownies, modified from a Pillsbury cookbook recipe
- 6 ounces plus about 3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips (12 ounce bag)
- 1/2 cup butter
- 3 eggs
- 1 1/4 cups flour
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 generous tsp vanilla
- 1/4 tsp baking soda
- 1/4 tsp salt
- about 1 cup chopped toasted pecans

Oven to 350 degrees; 13 x 9 pan lined with parchment or greased.

Melt 6 ounces of chocolate chips with the butter. Remove from heat when smooth and allow to cool slightly. Mix dry ingredients together in small bowl. Add sugar, then eggs, then vanilla to chocolate mixture. Stir in dry ingredients, and then remaining 3/4 cup chocolate chips. Pour into pan, then sprinkle pecans on top. Bake for 18-25 minutes (toothpick will be sticky with crumbs); cool in pan on rack.

Go check out the browniebabe event over at Once Upon a Tart!

Spicy Hot Brownies

I have a confession to make: I love brownies from a box. I have never tried homemade brownies that I liked better than ones made from a mix. Homemade brownies always seem to be either fudgy or cakey, and what I want is CHEWY. Therefore, when I started out looking for a base for my chile pepper brownies, I chose a recipe at random. They turned out to be of the fudgy variety. The flavor is fabulous - spicy like a cinnamon red hot melted together with the most decadent chocolate, tons of cinnamon-chocolate flavor with a lingering heat. But it still doesn't have the boxed mix texture I long for... I have high hopes that somewhere in the browniebabe round-up there will be lurking my ideal brownie. But in the meantime, these were a fun experiment, and I'm sure they would be fabulous to those of you that like fudgy brownies (particulary spicy-hot fudgy brownies.)

Spicy Hot Brownies

- 1 stick butter
- 1 cup flour
- 1/4 cup cocoa powder
- 1 tsp cayenne pepper
- 1 Tbsp cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 8 ounces dark chocolate
- 1 1/4 cup sugar
- 3 eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line 9x9 pan with parchment.

Melt chocolate and butter together, then allow to cool slightly. Mix all of the dry ingredients together in small bowl. Stir sugar, eggs, and vanilla into butter and chocolate. Add dry ingredients and stir until mixed. Pour into pan. Bake for 15-20 minutes, until toothpick has crumbs. Cool in pan, then remove and cut.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Bars

They are good, but not what I wanted. I am in search of something peanut butter flavored, but with the texture of a brownie. These are peanut butter flavored, with the texture of a peanut butter cookie. Dammit. I would welcome suggestions or advice from anyone.

In the meantime, here is the recipe that I used. It was modified from my old Pillsbury cookbook.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Bars:

- 1 cup peanut butter, divided (I used Trader Joe's creamy, natural style)
- 1/2 cup butter
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 1/4 cup brown sugar
- 1 egg
- 1 1/4 cup flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 6 ounces chocolate (I used a mix of dark and milk chocolates)
- 6 ounces heavy cream

Line a 9x9 inch square pan with parchment paper. Place 1/2 cup peanut butter, butter, and sugars together in large bowl and beat. Beat in egg. Add dry ingredients and beat. Refrigerate for about 20 minutes, and preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Press chilled dough into pan and bake for about 18-20 minutes, until it starts to become golden at the edges. Heat remaining 1/2 cup peanut butter, then spread carefully across bars. Allow bars to cool completely.

Heat heavy cream and chocolate, stirring constantly until smooth, and pour across peanut butter layer, spreading to edges. Chill bars until chocolate is set. Remove bars from pan and slice into squares. Store in refrigerator.

Coconut-Pistachio Shortbread with Caramel and Chocolate

My co-worker, E, was eating a Girl Scout Cookie the other day (the kind with caramel and coconut), and I decided I had to come up with some sort of home made version. I came up with this shortbread awhile ago, and then saw the caramel and chocolate layers in a Donna Hay cookbook. In the end, these bear very little to resemblance to a Girl Scout Cookie, but they are still crunchy and coconutty mixed with chewy and chocolatey, so they managed to satisfy that particular sweet tooth for me.

The Shortbread:

- a generous 1/4 cup of salted pistachios
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup corn starch
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/4 cup unsweetened coconut, toasted in the oven until golden
- 3/4 cup cold, salted butter, cut into 1/2 inch cubes

Oven at 300 degrees. 9x9 pan, lightly buttered, and lined with parchment paper (leave overhang for removing bars later - see picture in Lemon Bars post).

Put pistachios into food processor with 1/2 cup of flour and process until the pistachios are finely ground. Add the rest of the dry ingredients and mix, then scatter butter cubes into mixture. Pulse until mixed and dough begins to come together. Press into the bottom of the prepared pan and bake for about 40-50 minutes, until beginning to brown. Cool in pan for at least 30 minutes.

The Caramel:

- 1 can sweetened condensed milk (14 ounces)
- 1/2 cup salted butter
- 3 Tbsp brown sugar
- pinch of salt

Mix over medium heat, stirring non-stop until caramel is thick and smooth, about 10 minutes. Don't panic when it starts to look a little chunky - just keep stirring and eventually it will became smooth again. Pour over shortbread and quickly spread to cover. Cool, then chill in frig.

The Chocolate:

- 6 ounces chocolate
- 3 tsp vegetable oil

Mix over low heat, stirring constantly until smooth. Pour over caramel and quickly spread to cover. Cool, then chill in frig.
Lift bars out of pan with handles. Slice into squares and dispense to friends and co-workers.

Lemon Bars with Ginger Snap and Pistachio Crust

For some reason, it is refusing to warm up here in Seattle - the flowers have arrived, but you can't even smell them because it is so freakin' cold. This is all making my summer fever that much worse. I think that is where my hankering for citrus treats is coming from.

The original recipe for these bars uses lime and graham crackers, and came from Martha Stewart's Food magazine. They are quite fabulous done that way too.

For the crust:
-4 Tbsp salted butter, melted and cooled
-2/3 cup roasted and salted pistachios
-4 ounces VERY gingery ginger snaps
-1/4 cup sugar
-lemon zest from lemons used in your filling

Oven at 350 degrees, 8x8 pan lined greased and lined with parchment. Pulverize your gingersnaps in your food processor, then add everything else except the butter. Make a fine powder, then add the butter. Mix well, then press into the pan. Bake for about 7-10 minutes until it smells good and is beginning to brown. Cool on a rack for about thirty minutes.


For the filling:
-2 large egg yolks
-14 ounces of sweetened condensed milk
-1/2 cup lemon juice (about four small lemons)

Mix yolks and milk, then add juice. I found a fork works well for this. Pour the filling over the cooled crust, then bake until set, about 15 minutes, also at 350 degrees. Cool in pan on rack, then chill in refrigerator.

When it is time to snack, pull the entire slab out of the pan with parchment handles. Then slice and eat.

Yum. The filling is creamy - not rubbery like custard. The texture is what I always hope for with key lime pie. But the crust is truly the best part: spicy cookies and salty pistachios held together with butter...I'm not sure what else I can say.