Peppermint Brownies

I've been totally MIA from this blog.  I blame it on the Earth.  And my day job.  By the time I get home from work, it's basically dark out.  (Stupid winter!)  I'm still baking and cooking, I'm just not taking pictures of what I make.  Food pictures taken without natural light look kind of yellowish and unappetizing.  If you go back to the beginning of this blog you'll see what I mean.  I'm kind of embarrassed by those pictures--my poor brownie pizza....not its best light!!  Live and learn.

So anyway, it's Sunday and for the first time since the end of October we spent the weekend at home and with no company.  The Christmas tree went up, the presents got wrapped (a 3 hour job!), and I started obsessing about all of the holiday stuff I want to bake.  The problem with holiday baking is you don't really want to do it until right before the actual holiday when you can quickly give it out to family, neighbors and friends.  Otherwise it sits in your kitchen, calling your name.  Christmas treats tend to have great projection, and I can hear them from all over the house.  Especially about 11 at night, after a glass of wine has inhibited my ability to say no to them.

These peppermint brownies seemed like a good pre-Christmas-baking kind of holiday treat.  They aren't fussy or time intensive--no candy thermometer or extensive wrapping like caramels or English toffee.  

Well, a tiny bit fussy, because the chocolate melts best in a double-boiler.  If you don't have one, improvise like I do.  Put the chopped up chocolate and butter into a bowl, and set the bowl on top of a saucepan with about 2 inches of simmering water.

The best part is you can just throw the rest of the brownie stuff in this same bowl and make the base.

I whipped up the peppermint cream cheese layer in my food processor.  You know how I love my food processor.

While that all bakes...ganache.  I could eat this stuff with a spoon.  No lie.

Unfortunately while I was putting this all together, the Vikings were in a neck-and-neck with the Ravens and it was a total nail biter.  We lost, which probably goes without saying.  I'm telling you this to explain why I didn't get pictures.  I also forgot to set the timer for the cream cheese layer, which I didn't catch until I'd checked my clock a few times and realized it had been at the 3 minute mark WAY too long (3:17, and then 3:23, and then 3:27....pm, sigh).  But this recipe is particularly forgiving.  The ganache on the top covered the small crack from overcooking.  And really, look at this.

It's rich, and fudgy, and bright with peppermint.  It will undoubtedly call for me in the evenings until the kids eat it gone.  I don't care.  It's worth the extra treadmill time!

Peppermint Brownies
Slightly adapted from this Taste of Home recipe

Brownies:
8 T butter
3 one-ounce squares of semi-sweet chocolate, cut into pieces
2 eggs
1.5 cups of sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 c all-purpose flour

Minty Cream Cheese Layer:
1 package (8 oz) cream cheese, softened
2 T butter, softened
1 T cornstarch
1 egg
1 can (14 oz) sweetened condensed milk
1 tsp peppermint extract
red food coloring (I use Wilson's gel)

Ganache Layer;
1 c semisweet chocolate chips
1/2 c heavy cream

Crushed up candy canes or Andes Peppermint Chips (my choice) to sprinkle on top
 
Preheat the oven to 350.  Line a 13 x 9 pan with parchment paper, and spray with nonstick cooking spray if you wish to remove the brownies from the pan to cut and serve them.  Use a double-boiler (or your microwave) to melt the butter and chocolate.  Remove the bowl from the heat, and beat in the sugar.  Beat in eggs and vanilla until well combined, and then stir in the flour.  Pour the brownie batter into the prepared pan and cook for 15-20 minutes, until the top is set.

While it bakes, beat the cream cheese and butter until well combined.  Beat in the remaining cream cheese layer ingredients.  Pour on the brownie layer, and return to the oven for another 15-20 minutes or until the cream cheese layer is almost set.  Cool.

Prepare the ganache by gently melting the chocolate chips with the heavy cream.  Allow the ganache to cool as the brownies cool.  When the brownies are entirely cool, spread the ganache over the top, sprinkle with peppermint chips, cover the pan with foil, and refrigerate until all layers are set.  Enjoy!  

Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls

I figure I have between now and November 30th to use up the ridiculous amount of pumpkin I've got.  Pumpkin is for fall, and December 1st marks the definite shift to "Christmas season."  Pumpkins aren't for Christmas.  

This season we've had everything from pumpkin scones to pumpkin bars to pumpkin cookies.  I've even made my own pumpkin pie seasoning.  This recipe for pumpkin cinnamon rolls found its way into my Pinterest feed, where it was promptly pinned and made.  

Yu-um.  They were so scrumptious I made more of the dough, but froze it after I cut it into slices.  On Thanksgiving morning when we have lots of family here, I'll put them in my biggest rectangular baking pan, let them rise that last time, bake them, and slather them with frosting.  Way faster than starting them from scratch  I'm smart that way.  

Especially because starting them from scratch, for me, meant grabbing a pumpkin off of my front porch.  Instead of the baking method, I scooped out the seeds and cut the pumpkin into wedges where I boiled it until it was soft.

When I say from scratch, I really mean it!  The pumpkin gets mixed with a yeast-water mixture, scalded milk, egg, sugar and some butter.

Expected dry ingredients - flour, salt and spices - are mixed in and the dough is kneaded for about five minutes by the fabulous KitchenAid.

Long story made short: it rises, gets punched down, then rolled out to about a 15 x 10 rectangle.  A lot of butter is poured all over it.  

Then a lot of sugar, brown sugar, cinnamon and pumpkin pie spice is sprinkled over the top.

You know these naughty ingredients are why the cinnamon rolls taste so good.

Here's a tip for you.  You could cut the roll into pieces with a knife, but it will squish down the rolls.  Instead, grab up some dental floss.  Then do this.

Fun, right?  My kids are forever finding interesting uses for dental floss.  I impressed them with this one.

(FYI, I put the second batch into the freezer at this point).  

If you're baking them, not freezing them, let them rise a second time, give them a turn in the oven, and this happens.

Right?  Cinnamon rolls.  Pumpkin cinnamon rolls.  I pretended I was a school lunch lady and served them with chili at supper time.  They made terrific breakfast food before school the next morning.

Since I didn't alter the recipe I used for the rolls or the frosting, I'm going to share the links to them below.  I would have used the maple cream cheese frosting the pumpkin cinnamon roll recipe called for, but we have a cream-cheese-hater here.  The brown sugar frosting was super, though, and I'd recommend it!

Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls
Brown Sugar Icing

Halloween Cheesecake

Of all of the holidays, Halloween has to be my least favorite.  I just can't get into skulls, gore, monsters and spiders.  Honestly I might even prefer President's Day and Columbus Day.  Serious.  Maybe I'm a fun-hater.

That being said, I recently saw really cute spider cookies on Pinterest.  (Um, I just used 'cute' and 'spider' in the same sentence.  Yikes.)  Eli loved them and campaigned to make them, but I don't have any meringue powder to make royal icing.  Izaak, on the other hand, has been requesting cheesecake.  And then I had an epiphany.  A Halloween cheesecake.  

I can't bring myself to call this creation a spider cheesecake, or a spiderweb cheesecake, because how unappetizing does that sound?

Unappetizing.

People who like spiders and spiderwebs should come over and visit my barn in August to see the real deal.  We're authentic around these parts. 

So this is a Halloween cheesecake.  I started with the Ultimate Cheesecake Recipe from Tyler Florence of the Food Network.  Heads up - it called for 45 minutes of bake time, but could have used 50.  The bad thing about cheesecake is that it's hard to tell when it's done just by looking at the top.  But no cracks on the top, and that's always a good thing! 

   
After the cheesecake chilled overnight I made a ganache, of sorts.  I couldn't melt the semi-sweet chocolate chips with heavy whipping cream because I didn't have any so I went with something better anyway.  Peanut butter.

For the spiderweb I went with melted almond bark because I had a few bricks left from a different project.  I'm sure melted white chocolate chips would have been fine, too.

I love those squeeze bottles.  You can get them at WalMart for like $2, and they're fabulous for projects like this.  Use the squeeze bottle to draw circles on the top of the chocolate.  If you don't have a squeeze bottle, just put the melted almond bark in a zip-loc baggie, cut a tiny bit of one corner off and squeeze it out of that.

Then you'll need another specialized tool.  A toothpick.  Starting at the center, just drag a toothpick to the outside all around the cheesecake and walla, a web!

 

 
Since it's a spiderweb, it seemed a little empty without an occupant....

 

He's made out of a Hershey's Spice Kiss and some black licorice.  Since he's so very obviously not life-like, he's not disgusting and doesn't ruin the cheesecake.  Why anyone makes life-like bugs and eyeballs and chopped off fingers out of food is really beyond me.  I just don't get it.

But this, I get.

 

Let me tell you, I reached rock-star-mom status with this thing.  Our 15-year old took a picture with his iPhone.  To show his friends.  For real.  (Disclaimer: This is the same boy who hates cream cheese and can detect it in anything.  He wouldn't eat this cheesecake, he just admired its construction.)

He missed out.  It was as good as it was cute.  Even with a web and a spider.

 

How-To:

For the cheesecake, use the recipe linked above.  

For the chocolate topping, I used a 1/2 cup peanut butter and a bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips, melted in the microwave for one minute.  I spread it on the chilled cheesecake while it was still in the springform pan.

For the almond bark I melted about 3 bricks out of the package and had leftovers.  Melted almond bark went into a squeeze bottle to draw the circles.  Make certain you draw your circles and then drag the lines with the toothpick quickly, because the almond bark firms up fast and if it solidifies you won't get a web, you'll get broken pieces of almond bark.

The spider was a Hershey's Spice Kiss with black licorice.

Chill the cheesecake after you do the chocolate top and web until the chocolate hardens.  Remove the sides of the springform pan, then enjoy!

 

Pumpkins and Kisses Blondies

I'm on a mission to use up the bountiful pumpkin harvest we had this fall.  Every time someone comes over I try to fob off a few, because my freezer is full and there's no way we can possibly use all of these little guys up.

In the meantime I'm baking pumpkins left and right.  I pinned this recipe the other day, and used it as my inspiration for these fall-inspired blondies.  I don't really get into all of the recipes that heap candy after cookie after chocolate chip into a single recipe, but I knew with some refining they had promise.

They did.

WOW.

Amazing!  I'll be immodest here and say I made a production of patting myself on the back when we dug into these.  They were genious!

Here's the play-by-play: 

I grabbed up a pumpkin off of my front porch, washed it, cut it in half, scooped out the seeds, roasted the halves until the flesh was soft, scooped out the flesh from the rind and mashed the flesh.  If you don't have a baking pumpkin on your porch, just grab a 15 oz can of pumpkin puree.

While you're scooping and mashing, put butter and the sugars into your KitchenAid and let it whip for a good five minutes so it's light and fluffy.

Add the other wet and dry ingredients for the blondies, and then this happens.

Pumpkin Spice Kisses.  Oh yeah.  Mmmm-hmmmm! Seasonal Kisses.  I'm partial to the mint ones at Christmas time, but these definitely come in a close second.  They get chopped up into big pieces and added to the dough with some chopped pecans.

 
About 2/3 of the dough gets baked for ten minutes in a 9 x 13 cake pan, and then a whole bag of caramels, melted with some evaporated milk, gets poured on top.  That caramel-y goodness is topped with the other 1/3 of the dough.  Like a pumpkin blondie sandwich.  

Definitely my kind of sandwich.  The texture is just like a super good brownie--thick and chewy--with bright cinnamony-sweet kicks from the Kisses and nutty goodness from the pecans.  The pumpkin pie flavor brings it all together.  It's so good.  

And you could always do this to it, too.

  
So stop in at my place and pick up a pumpkin (or five).  Then dash to the store to pick up a package of Pumpkin Spice Kisses (or five).  You won't be sorry you did.  (And neither will I).

Pumpkin and Kisses Blondies
Adapted from Loaded Caramel Pumpkin Blondies

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup graham cracker crumbs
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
2.5 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1 cup softened (not melted) butter
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups mashed pumpkin (or a 15 oz can of pumpkin puree)
30 Pumpkin Spice Hershey Kisses, chopped
2 oz pecans, chopped
1 bag (11 oz) caramels
1/3 cup evaporated milk

Prepare the pumpkin if you are using a baking pumpkin.  If you aren't, skip that step.  

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.  In a mixer, vigorously beat the butter and sugars for about five minutes, until it is light and creamy.  Add the pumpkin, egg, and vanilla, beating until well incorporated.  In a separate bowl whisk together the flour, graham cracker crumbs, baking soda, salt, and pumpkin pie spice.  Add the dry ingredients to the batter and mix until combined.  Add the chopped Pumpkin Spice Kisses and pecans, then gently mix until combined.  

Spray a 9 x 13 baking dish with nonstick cooking spray.  Spread 2/3 of the dough in the bottom of the pan and bake for 10 minutes.  While that is baking, unwrap the caramels into a glass bowl and add the evaporated milk.  Microwave the caramels for a minute, then stir.  Microwave in additional increments of 30 seconds, removing the caramels when they are melted.  Pour the melted caramels over the brownie batter and allow it to sit for about five minutes to firm up a bit.  Then blob (yep blob) the remaining 1/3 of the dough evenly over the top of the caramel.  Spread gently so you don't disrupt the caramel.  Bake for another 30 minutes.  Remove from the oven and allow the blondies to cool.  Then enjoy! 

Irish Coffee

A few years ago my husband turned 40.  To celebrate, I brought him along to a conference I was attending in San Francisco.  (I know, I know, that doesn't sound very romantic but it was, and hey! Two birds, one stone.)  We had never gone away together on a trip like that without the kids.

Wow!

We love each other.  Of course we love each other, we've been married for 19 years.  But on that trip we remembered we liked each other.  He's pretty darn good company when the kids aren't around!  We drove all over Muir Woods National Monument, gazed out for miles across the Pacific Ocean, drove back and forth over the bridge, and ate at all sorts of amazing places.  While we liked the s'mores pie at the Buckeye Roadhouse and the chocolate at Ghirardelli Square and the seafood at Scoma's, the thing we loved the most was the famous Irish coffee at the Buena Vista Cafe on Fisherman's Warf.  A-mazing.

While neither of us can sneak away to San Francisco right now, and I can't recreate the atmosphere of sharing this coffee on a cold rainy night on the Bay, I can settle for the next best thing (haha) and make Irish coffee on a cool evening in Iowa.

The best coffee at my house comes from my moka pot.  While it isn't an espresso maker, it's pretty darn close and it cost WAY less.  It's also easier to use and clean up.  Just fill the base with water:

   
Insert the metal filter and add espresso grounds

And screw on the top.

In about eight minutes you've got almost-espresso.  If you don't have a moka pot, just make a strong pot of coffee.  While it's brewing, add a teaspoon of sugar to your coffee mug.

I have two glass coffee mugs like this one.  They're just like the mugs used at the Buena Vista Cafe.  I found them at Crate and Barrel, in case you want some too.  When it's done brewing, pour the hot coffee on top of the sugar, about 3/4 full.

Top the coffee with a jigger of Irish whiskey.  Did you know a jigger is the same thing as a shot?  And for those of us who just want a specific amount, that's 1.5 ounces.  So now you know.  A jigger of whiskey is 1.5 ounces.

I'm sure there are all sorts of Irish whiskeys, but when I make Irish coffee I buy Jameson.  It's ridiculously expensive and I have to stand in the alcohol aisle and debate for five minutes on how much I really want Irish coffee before I decide.  I'm sure I look like an alcoholic fixating while I make up my mind.  I used this blog as the deciding factor for this bottle because I really wanted to share with you.  My husband thanks you.

  
Warm up some heavy whipping cream (about a minute in the microwave) and whip it until it's thick but not at all like whipped topping.  I use this milk frother, which is the best thing since sliced bread.  I use the moka pot and frother every morning when I make my latte.  In case you were wondering.

Here's the only tricky part about making Irish coffee.  You want the whipped heavy cream to float on top of the coffee.  I'm not perfect at this yet, but practice makes perfect, right?  And we don't mind drinking our mistakes around here.  This glass turned out pretty well, though I've got a way to go before I reach Buena Vista standards.

The trick is to pour the hot whipped heavy cream over a spoon so it doesn't pour directly down into the coffee.  

 I should have stopped here, but I poured a little too fast and this happened.

The cream started to mix a little with the coffee.  But it all worked out.  

   
Our Irish coffee was layered and lovey.  Cream.  Creamy whiskey.  Sweetened coffee.

While the ocean wasn't a block away, and our four kids were swarming and chattering and busy, for a moment we could remember that time together in San Francisco.

That time when we remembered we still liked each other.   You know what I mean.

Slainte!

Irish Coffee

Hot strong coffee
1 tsp sugar per mug
1/4 cup heavy whipping cream per mug
1.5 ounces Jameson Irish Whiskey per mug

Prepare coffee.  As the coffee is brewing add a teaspoon of sugar to each mug and heat the heavy cream in a microwave safe container.  Briskly whip the heavy cream until it is thick (but not thick like whipped cream or whipped topping).  Pour the hot coffee into each mug on top of the sugar.  Gently pour a jigger (1.5 oz) of whiskey on top of each coffee.  Very gently pour heavy whipping cream on to a spoon above the coffee so that the heavy cream floats on the top of the whiskey.  Then enjoy!