Brownie Pizza

 

When I make brownie pizza, I'm a hero in my own house.  I kind of feel like a baking-poser with all that praise, because making brownie pizza is stupid easy.  And doesn't it figure that easy recipes are the ones that make your family hug you, but the two-hour recipes with a hundred steps result in a few tastes and "It's good, I'm just not very hungry."  Cheesecake?  Nope, they won't touch it.  Tortes?  Not so much.  Pie entirely from scratch?  Meh.  But throw something like this together and it's gone by the end of the day.

In case you have an extra few minutes and want your family to think you belong on the Food Network, try this one out.

Brownie Pizza
Adapted from Taste of Home

Brownie:
3/4 c butter
3 squares unsweetened chocolate
1.5 c sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1.5 c flour
3 eggs

Frosting:
1.5 c powdered sugar
1/2 c peanut butter
2 tsp vanilla
6 T milk

Toppings:
Candies of your choosing

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.  Because this is brownie PIZZA, I would recommend preparing a pizza pan by lining it with nonstick aluminum foil.  If you don't have nonstick foil, then butter the pizza pan.  I used a large pizza pan with a diameter of about 14 inches.  I'm sure you could use a jelly roll pan, but then you probably couldn't call it brownie pizza....  

In a saucepan, combine the butter, chocolate and sugar.  My strategy to prevent the chocolate from getting stuck to the bottom of the pan and burning is to rest the squares of chocolate on top of the butter.  I'm smart like that.

I add the sugar in when the butter is mostly melted and the chocolate is just starting to melt.  Whisk the sugar in until everything is melted and smooth.  Remove from the heat and stir in the flour.  It's important to do this before adding the eggs to give the mixture some time to cool down.  If you add the eggs too quickly, the heat from the mixture will scramble them.  And that would not be tasty, and you might not get the same type of accolades from your family.  Just saying.  Anyway, after the flour has been stirred in, quickly stir in the beaten eggs until they are well incorporated.  Spread the mixture onto the prepared pizza pan.

Bake for about 15 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.  Remove the pizza from the oven, and allow it to cool completely.

I would recommend you make the frosting for this pizza in hiding.  Or send your kids outside into the snow to stack wood or scrape the driveway, or give them Clorox wipes and have them clean the bathroom or something.  If you don't, you are going to have to share the beaters.  Everyone will want them, it will be a fight, and I promise you won't get any.  

When the kitchen is cleared, beat the powdered sugar, peanut butter, vanilla and milk until it is light and smooth.  Spread the frosting onto the cooled pizza, but consider leaving a copious amount on the beaters and in the mixing bowl so you can "clean them off" before washing them.  

Then comes the part that sends this good brownie and amazing frosting right over the edge.  The candy on top.

You can use whatever you'd like.  We always use M&Ms, but today I included Reese's Pieces and chopped up chocolate-covered cookies I had leftover from a tin from the holidays.  Consider chopped up peanut butter cups, chocolate chips, toasted nuts, toasted coconut, or whatever you have in your pantry that looks good.

Then slice it up like a pizza, and eat it with your fingers.  Licking peanut butter frosting off your fingers is way better than licking off red sauce from a slice of pepperoni, anyway.  

And serious, if I'm going to consume a gob of calories, I'd WAY rather have a pie like this than one covered in greasy cheese and meat.  I bet the people you share it with will, too.  Maybe you should test it out, but be prepared for the hero status that comes with it.  You might not leap buildings with a single bound, but you can surely whip up something scrumptious in a few minutes!

 
 


 
 

 

Flat Bread

"It doesn't really taste like anything, but it's so addicting."  That's not exactly high praise, but every year the Hoey family eats this stuff as if 2011 would have been the last year for the holidays.  Those darn Mayans.

Flat bread is a Christmas tradition for my mother-in-law.  With every daughter and granddaughter, baking this crispy cracker/cookie/thingy has become an integral part of the December hoopla.  But not for me.  I've resisted taking part in this tradition for 18 years.  "This isn't really how my mom makes it" is not something I have ever wanted to hear. 

But then.

My husband bought me this for Christmas.  It was a not-so-subtle hint.

 And as if that wasn't direct enough, he also brought me home this:

So I relented.  His request came with a kitchen gadget, and I purely love kitchen gadgets.  And it gave me another reason to use my new Cuisinart food processor.  As if I needed any reason at all.

The directions on the recipe were vague, which is likely because this recipe has been handed down and definitely comes from the school of 'a little of this and until it looks right.'  I wasn't certain if I should cream the butter and sugar before adding anything else, or if I should treat it like a pie crust and cut in the butter with the dry ingredients.  Since I was using the Cuisinart and not the KitchenAid, I went with a modified pie crust approach.  When the ingredients were blended and I'd kneaded the last bit of flour into the dough, I tore off about a fist-sized hunk to roll out. 

 
The dough is super sticky, and I found sprinkling the dough periodically during the roll-out prevented it from getting stuck in all the tiny squares of the rolling pin.

The dough needs to be rolled really, really thin.  This can be a frustration, because as you peel it off the countertop it can tear.  Reference my previous posts on perfectionism....  (let it go Bec, let it go).

When the dough was seriously paper thin, I peeled it off the countertop, draping it over my arm to lay on the cookie sheet.  The directions my mother-in-law sent did not indicate whether the cookie sheet should be greased.  I tried it both ways, and it didn't make a difference as far as sticking to the pan, so I'd recommend not buttering the sheet.  You don't want the flat bread to taste fried at all.  Because there were times my dough tore, I found I could continue to roll it out once I had transferred it onto the cookie sheet to repair tears and get the dough as thin as possible.

The recipe indicated to cook the flat bread until it browned.  For me, that was about 11 minutes in a 350 degree oven.  I removed it when it looked like this:

Some Hoeys believe flat bread is best eaten as it is, just broken off into pieces.  I'd say it tastes like a very thin sugar cookie that isn't very sweet.  Other Hoeys butter their flat bread and sprinkle it with cinnamon and sugar, which obviously does up the sweetness factor.

I'm puzzled why flat bread is only made at Christmas time.  I could absolutely see it as a side to savory soup, particularly minestrone.  Rolled just a touch thicker, it would be a good base for a sandwich.  Really, I'm not sure what the big deal is about this stuff.  It doesn't have a distinctive flavor, and it isn't sweet like a cookie.  I've only had like six pieces in the last two minutes and it's nothing special.  The kids are pulling it off the cooling racks faster than I can put it on, so they might like it.  My husband said it isn't as thin as his mom's (sweet, right?) after coming back for fifths.  

I don't really get what the big deal is about flat bread.  

Hang on, I need another piece...

Flat Bread
From my mother-in-law, passed down through generations of German women.

2 cups buttermilk
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup cornmeal
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
6 cups of flour, plus more for rolling (I used at least another cup)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  In a food processor or blender combine the butter, sugar, cornmeal, baking powder and salt.  Gradually add the milk and flour, adding some of each until you've used all the buttermilk and about 4 to 5 cups of the flour.  Scrape the dough onto a floured countertop, and knead in the rest of the flour.  The dough will be very sticky.  Tear off a piece of the dough, about the size of a large fist.  Roll out the piece of dough on a floured countertop, periodically sprinkling flour over the top of the dough to prevent sticking.  When the dough is paper thin, gently place it onto an ungreased cookie sheet.  Bake the flat bread for 10 to 12 minutes, until the dough has crisped and browned.  Remove the cookie sheet from the oven and allow the flat bread to cool for a few minutes, then place the flatbread on a cooling rack to cool completely.  Repeat with the remaining dough.  Serve plain, or with butter, cinnamon, sugar, frosting, jam, flavored cream cheese, meat, or whatever else makes you happy.  Strangely, enjoy! 

Monkey Bread for JC

Izaak's friend group has changed this year, and some different boys have been hanging at our place.  Sweet boys.  Good boys.  Boys like Izaak.  Last night we had two of them over, and this morning one of them woke up as a 14 year old.  That called for monkey bread for breakfast.

There's a short method and a long method for making monkey bread.  Before I became baking-obsessed, I used the short method.  I'm sure there's no shame in it, but since I'm all about 'nothing processed' that I can help anymore, I go with the long way.  The short method means buying loaves of frozen bread dough.  The long method means making the dough from scratch.  You could probably buy some jar-kind of caramel topping to pour over the frozen bread dough if you wanted really fast, but I'm not into that.  This monkey bread has a secret ingredient in the topping that we think makes it extra perfect.  I'll share it with you today, in honor of JC, who can now get his school driving permit.  God help his mama.   

Monkey Bread

Bread dough adapted from Carla P's Amish White Bread Loaves, shared at Tasty Kitchen 

5.5 c bread flour

2/3 c sugar

1 t salt

1.5 T yeast

1/4 c canola oil

2 c warm water

1 c white sugar

1 T cinnamon

1 c brown sugar

1 c vanilla ice cream

1/2 cup butter (one stick)

In a glass measuring cup with 2 cups of pretty warm (but not super hot) water, whisk in yeast and 1 teaspoon of sugar.  Allow the mixture to proof for about 10 minutes.  

As it does, mix together the flour, remaining sugar and salt.  When the yeast mixture is ready, add it and the oil into the flour mixture and combine.  Then using a dough hook, allow your Kitchenaid to knead the dough for about 8 minutes.  You could be very old school and knead the dough yourself, but I'm not that into doing things the long way.  As the Kitchenaid is doing its thing, grease a bowl for the dough to rise in.  When the dough is kneaded, put it into the greased bowl.  

I like to turn my oven on for a minute or two to warm it up, then turn the oven light on and turn the oven off.  I put a damp kitchen towel over the top of the bowl and place the whole thing into the slightly warmed oven.  Let the dough rise until it's doubled, which will take about an hour.  While it's rising, grease an angelfood cake pan.  In a bowl, combine 1 cup of white sugar and 1 tablespoon of cinnamon.  

  

When the dough has doubled, punch it down.  You're ready to make the dough balls.  Tear off a chunk of dough and roll it into the cinnamon sugar mixture.  Go with ping-pong to golf ball sized pieces.  How's that for technical?  

Put each dough ball into the angelfood cake pan.  When they're all in there, pour any remaining cinnamon sugar over the top and shake it a bit to distribute.

Allow the dough balls to rise again.  Be careful about how much you let them rise, though.  I did a half hour, and mine rose too high.  The problem is that there isn't much room left at the top of the pan, and when you pour the caramel sauce on top it will bubble over in your oven as the dough bakes up, which causes an unholy mess.  

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. In a glass bowl, melt the butter and ice cream together.  Whisk in the brown sugar. Then pour the sauce over the dough.

Now it's starting to look yumma.  Put your monkey bread in the oven for a half hour.  To be safe, you might consider lining a cookie sheet with aluminum foil and putting that in the rack under your monkey bread in case some of the caramel sauce bubbles over.  Don't be like me and have to clean your oven after this.

After you pull the bread from the oven, let it sit.  My original recipe, borrowed from a friend years ago, suggested to wait a half hour before flipping the angelfood pan over onto a plate.  There is no way my family can wait that long.  I'm impressed if we can give it 10 minutes.

At this point, everyone can descend and tear off pieces of the monkey bread.  There is jockeying at my house for the 'best' pieces, which means the ones with the most caramel. I always let my family go first, but since I'm sharing with you, and you're the guest, I snitched a few pieces before anyone else got to it.

 

Mmmmmmm.   I ate that bite for you.  It was awesome.  I'm nice like that.  Then I let the boys at it.

No one complained.  Happy birthday JC.  You were worth the long method and a dirty oven!

How to Make an American Quilt for a Soon-to-Be Columbian-American Girl

My sister and her husband Chris are adopting a niece for me.  It's the second time my sister has taken one for the team and brought me home a niece from another country.  

My sister is great like that.  

Our niece Zahria was adopted from Kazakhstan, and her new little sister is coming to our family by way of Columbia, South America.  We're calling her our little Columbian Bean until she's in the country and everything is all legal and stuff.  Dang that Hague Convention, anyway.

Before Zahria came home I made her a small quilt, which has been well-loved in the past five years.  Lil' Bean needs a quilt of her own, so Z helped her mom pick out some material and they sent it my way.  Zahria chose the cupcakes, which is the sweetest but also proved to be the most maddening to work with.  More on that later.  In any case, I decided on a simple square pattern and kind of made things up as I went along.  In case you have a sweet little one headed to your family and you feel like putting your love into fabric-form, some rudimentary instructions follow.

My sister sent 9" by 44" of the cupcake fabric and 18" by 44" of the dot, blue owl and yellow fabrics.  She also sent a length of bright pink which I used for the border and backing.  I forgot to measure that for you before I used it--sorry.  Go with two yards.  All of the fabrics were flannel, though that cupcake was a different type than the others, almost like a pajama-knit-flannel.  Try to get the same type/thickness of each of the fabrics, and avoid stretchy fabric like the plague.  You will thank me for taking that advice.  More on that later.

Because of the amount of fabric I had, I needed to cut my squares into 4.5 by 4.5 inch pieces.  It would be easier for you to just go with 5 by 5, but you roll with whatever works for you.

If you don't own a rotary cutter, a cutting mat and a plastic ruler-thingy, I would strongly recommend buying them before taking on any quilting project.  You can buy them at Amazon.com here, or in any fabric store.  Walmart even carries them.  

When cutting fabric, it is simplest to first cut strips that are 4.5" wide, and then cut each strip into 4.5" pieces.  You can find directions all over the internet for how to cut strips, including videos.  You might start with this one.

You should end up with stacks of squares.  Feel free to iron them at this step, but I didn't. 
 

Now comes the step that took me forever.  Not really, but I spent a lot of time on it.  Arrange the squares however you would like.  For Zahria's quilt, which was primarily chenille, I randomly placed squares.  I know random sounds like it would take the least amount of time, but it didn't because I didn't want two of the same type of squares touching.  The randomness took a lot of planning.  But I'm bad at random, so maybe that was just me.  I ended up with this design for Lil' Bean's quilt, which was 9 squares by 11 squares, for a total of 99 squares.  (Those are my mad math skills coming through there).  You could certainly go larger; there were quite a few unused squares from this project.  Since this quilt is for snuggling in the car, in the rocking chair, and on aunties' laps, I wanted a smaller size.

There is an efficiency to quilting squares, and if you follow the logic it will save you a ton of time and frustration.  Do this.  Flip the second column of squares onto the first column of squares.  Then starting at the bottom, stack each set so the top squares are on the top of your pile.

When you sew the right edge together, begin sewing the top two squares but then DON'T stop the sewing machine or cut the thread.  Pretend you are in an assembly line in a sweatshop somewhere, and sew the second set of quilt squares with just a small space of thread between them without stopping the machine.  A huge time saver.  

See what I mean?  You'll end up with a connected group of squares.

Snip them apart and stack them, keeping the bottom set on the bottom and working your way up to the top.  That order is important.  If you forget it, your pattern is going to be way off and you'll end up with a random quilt, even if you hadn't planned on one!

Go back to the quilt squares arranged on your floor.  Starting at the bottom again, stack the next column of squares.

Arrange them at your machine so the sewn pairs are next to the squares from the next column.  Again, notice that the top squares are on top.

Open up the sewn pair and lay the solo square on top of the right side, "good" (printed) sides touching, lining up the edges.  

Now sew that third column of squares onto the second column squares.  Again, do not stop your machine between squares.  Repeat those steps, sewing all of the columns of squares to make your rows.

When all of the rows have been sewn, you will need to iron the seams.  This is really super important because this little trick is going to help your squares "lock" so the edges are perfect.  Or it will if you do not have cupcake fabric.  The cupcake fabric STRETCHED insanely when I ironed the seams.  That meant all of my squares were 4.5 x 4.5 except those cupcakes, which became like 6 x 4.5 and caused havoc through the remainder of my project.  

Iron row 1 with all of the seams going to the left (raw edges pointing left) as shown above.  Then iron all of row 2 seams going to the right (raw edges pointing right).  Row 3 will go left, row 4 will go right, and repeat through row 11.  Row 11 will be ironed to the left because it is an odd-numbered row.  Holy math skills, Robin.    

You're ready to sew row 1 to row 2.  Put the good sides together, and pin at each intersection of squares.  Notice how the edges "lock" because one seam goes one way and the other seam goes the other way?  That's what you want.  And this is what you don't want:

If your fabric has stretched in the ironing, your corners are not going to meet.  That is maddening.  You'll then be forced to attempt to stretch fabric and fudge tiny little gathers to try to get the edges to meet.  Your squares won't form perfect corners and the quilt will be a dead loss.  Or you'll just have to live with some imperfect corners.  Apparently the Amish (or some such group) say no quilt is perfect because only God is perfect, so if that helps you feel ok with it, then go with that.  I do.

When all of your rows are sewn together, iron the seams between rows in the same direction.

Tada!  You have the quilt top primarily done.  Now to sewn a border onto it.  I cut 3 inch by 44 inch strips of the same fabric I used as backing for the quilt.  As a general rule, do some measuring before you cut.  This worked for me because none of the sides of my quilt were longer than 44".  If you used more than 99 squares, yours might be.  

Pin a strip of border to the left and right sides of your quilt.  

Be certain to pin at each of the seams, ensuring the seams are sewn down in the direction they were ironed.
 

After you sew each strip of border, lay the quilt flat on your ironing surface, then push the border up and iron it flat.

The left and right sides of the border should be sewn on first, then the top and bottom.  

You could stop and bind the quilt at this stage and call it good.  I had to put a little something extra onto Lil' Bean's quilt because I couldn't let well-enough alone.  

I sewed pom pom trim onto the edge of the border.  There was just a small amount of edging on the pom pom trim, so this step was a little tricky.  You can't see it from the pictures, but the edging of the pom pom trim is actually on the RIGHT side.  That was intentional, because when you sew the backing on you will flip the quilt inside out and the pom poms will be sandwiched between the top and back of the quilt, obviously poking out.  It's hard to explain.  Just trust me.  If you are going to sew pom pom trim, sew the edge of the trim so the pom poms are facing into the middle of the quilt and the edge of the trim is facing the outside edges. 

After the pom pom trim was sewn around the edge, I assembled all three layers of the quilt to combine them.  Spread the top of the quilt on a hard surface so the good side is up.  Then lay the backing of the quilt so the good side is down.  (Notice the good sides will be touching).  Then lay your batting on the top.  It's much easier to sew if you use a smooth batting like this one.  Pin everything securely in place.  Trim so the edges are even and you can see all three layers.  Then sew around the outside edge.  You hope to catch the edge of the pom pom trim in that, too, if you can--but it's almost impossible to see it when you're sewing. 

DON'T SEW IT ENTIRELY SHUT or your quilt will be inside out.  Leave a small space (above), maybe 8 inches, unsewn.  Then flip the quilt inside out, so it actually ends up right side out.  Know what I mean?  Your batting should now be on the inside of the quilt, and the top and back are good sides out.  You will need to hand-stitch the 8 inches remaining closed.  

You could call it good at this point, but it's not a bad idea to do some type of quilting to secure the batting inside the quilt so it doesn't shift after washings and repeated love.  I chose to hand-stitch around the border. 

I also cut off pom poms from the left over trim, used pink embroidery floss and secured a pom pom to the center of each of the cupcake squares.

 And then I called it good enough.

Now comes the hardest part.  Waiting the excruciatingly long wait for the paperwork to be accepted that will allow our sweet Lil' Bean to come home.  I can hardly wait to snuggle her, with or without a quilt!