Favorite Brownie Recipe

When I was younger, I didn't know that you could make brownies from scratch.  My mom always made them from a box because it is faster and easier.  When Rob first introduced me to brownies from scratch, I wasn't too excited about the long process; boxes were just easier.  I really hate melting chocolate because even with a double-boiler, I can get impatient and burn it.

My life was forever changed with my good friend Mary introduced me to her brownies.  They have a wonderful crust on top, are very chocolatey, and gooey.  The best part is they do not involve melting chocolate!  I made them last week for my boss' birthday.  He loves peanut butter and chocolate, so I added a layer of Reese's.  Here was the finished product:

Hello, lover...

Mary Winter Brownies:

What you need:

3/4 cup room temperature butter (I use unsalted)

1 1/2 cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla

3 eggs

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking powder

3/4 cup flour

1/2 cup cocoa (I use Hershey's unsweetened)

1/2 bag chocolate chips (dark chocolate is best)

How you make them:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees.

2. In a small bowl, mix the salt, baking powder, flour and cocoa together.

3. In a different, bigger bowl, cream the butter and sugar together.

4. To this, add the vanilla and eggs, mix well.
5. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients .  I usually do this in 3 parts so I don't make a huge mess.
6. Fold in the chocolate chips.
7. Pour batter into a greased 9x9 pan.
8. Bake for 35-40 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. (Double batch bakes for 45-50 minutes)

Variations:  These brownies are really yummy with Heath bar, either on top or mixed in.  In the picture above, I made a double batch without the chocolate chips, put in half the batter, placed 25ish Reese's on top, then poured the rest of the batter on top.  A double batch bakes for 45-50 minutes.  Mine got a little too done on the bottom (in a Pyrex) because I didn't want them to be too gooey, but next time I will take them out a little sooner.

Enjoy :)

Reasons I love The Pioneer Woman...

If I was eating carbs, I would immediately go upstairs and make this...Ok, I would wait for the KU game to be over, but after that I would march upstairs and preheat the oven.

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2011/02/devil-dogs/

Enjoy...don't drool on your computer :)

CHRISTMAS WEEK!!!!

I am like a total kid; I LOVE Christmas!  I love all the festive lights and food and music and sweaters...wait, that might be going too far :)  Appropriately, here are my favorite Christmasy things:


5. Christmas Lights!  Check out this house!  Could you imagine being their neighbor??

4. Cake Balls.  If you do not know what these are, please refer to the Pioneer Woman's handy-dandy instructions here or her Halloween themed ones here.  Deliciousness.  Make these today!

Yum Yum Yum

3. Holiday Music.  I definitely turned on the Christmas music on the day after Thanksgiving.  I only bought like 4 new albums this year...my favorites are still the oldies, like "Blue Christmas" by Elvis, "White Christmas" and "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas."  Don't they just make you feel jolly??


2. White Christmas.  Yes, I mean the movie, but I also love a snow-covered Christmas Day!  I mean, if it is going to be cold, can't we have pretty snow to enjoy too?  Anyway, I love the "Sisters" song in White Christmas and how long the inseam is on the pants that Bing Crosby wears.  


1.  My number 1 favorite thing about Christmas is Christmas Morning.  Yea, you could say that is cheating because my favorite thing about Christmas is Christmas, but I specifically mean the morning.  I always try to sleep in, but I'm WAY too excited, even if I know what I am getting for Christmas.  I get excited to give my brother and mom their gifts and enjoy our traditions.  Even now that we are 21 and 24, my brother and I have an inability to sleep in on Christmas.  Sleeping in would be like 8:30...we used to get up at like 6:00, my mom loved it (not).  I am so excited for Saturday!


I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas!

I'm baaaaaaack!

Don't worry, I'm back.  I apologize for my absence.  I have officially settled on this as my blogging platform...please update your bookmark, again.


To win you back over, I will entertain you with what I have dubbed, the "Pie Debacle."  On Tuesday, we had a Thanksgiving lunch at work.  Obviously, I signed up to bring pie.  To clarify, I am not a cook; I dabble in baking, emphasis on dabble.  I decided to use this fabulous recipe I had to make a Pecan Bourbon Black Bottom Pie.  I figured, how hard could it be?  I mean I can make a mean pan of brownies (no, not from a box), so I can handle a pie.  I was getting cocky.  I decided to wear my ADPi apron that has an embroidered pie in place of the "Pi."  Cute, right?  And, there was a KU basketball game on, so I was all like, Rock Chalk!  In retrospect, the game may have been a distraction.  


So, on to the pie.  I preheated the oven and got out all my ingredients.  First, I tried to put the pie crust in a red Paula Deen pie dish.  The pie crust did not come to the top so, I decided to use a glass dish.  Well, I went on my way and mixed everything and put it in the pie dish.  Well, the filling was exactly at the top, so I tried to scoop out a little bit.  I decided that it would probably be ok.   After 10 minutes in the oven, it was apparent that I was wrong.  The filling began overflowing, taking some of the pie crust with it.  All that sugar, then began burning in the bottom of the oven.  That burning then created smoke.  I didn't want my pie to taste like smoke, so I let it out of the oven and then had to open the doors and turn on all the fans so that the smoke alarm didn't go off.  That was all I needed, the fire department showing up.  Well, my mom wasn't home so after several phone calls, she came home and it became apparent that this pie wasn't going to work out.  After removing the charred overflow from the bottom of the oven, I had to have a second go.


The second time was much better.  I realized that I had used 4 times the amount of butter I was supposed to in the first pie.  Oops.  When I managed to follow the recipe exactly, the pie turned out spectacularly.  Lesson learned: Don't watch KU basketball while trying to make a pecan pie.


I hope you enjoy my misadventures :)