March Madness

Ahhh it feels so wonderful to have absolutely nothing to do but update this blog right now.  March is traditionally a very hectic month for me due to winter finals, but that does not mean I can't find a few spare hours to bake here and there.  It is just a lot easier to bake something than to document it on here- thus, I have some catching up to do! The beginning of March is full of birthdays at my house- this adds an element of challenge because I need to somehow make and decorate the elaborate treat item without having the birthday girl know about it.  I would also have to store the item somehow (ie shove it to the back of the fridge and hope no one sees).

At some point recently, my housemates came up with the idea of "hinterest", a pinterest-like platform that is specifically for finding and pinning items/recipes you like so that wonderful people in your life can make and or purchase those items for you.  Since the domain name for "hinterest" is already taken (and I don't think I have time in my life to maintain ANOTHER webpage), I figured we just had to use pinterest itself and I could make a board that people could pin on for hints of ideas of recipes I could make.  That way, I can choose among the "hinted" recipes so it is somewhat of a surprise.

For week one of birthday madness, I went with the cookie dough brownies.  I would say the creation of this recipe was analogous to purchasing something for a family member as a gift knowing that you too will be able to take part in the enjoying of that item.  Since there are very few things I like more than cookie dough and brownies, let alone them together, I'm not going to lie and say there was no selfish motive here.  However, I think the one down side of actually making the brownies is knowing just how much butter goes into making them.  Ignorance is bliss! But that honestly did not stop me from consuming an inappropriate amount of these brownies.  The pan must have weighed 20 pounds..... my household probably collectively gained that much after consuming the entire pan in 1.5 days.  Anyways here is the recipe for the brownies, I used "Brooke's best bombshell brownies" for the brownie base

COOKIE DOUGH BROWNIES 

Brownie Base:
1 cup melted butter
3 cups white sugar
1 tbsp vanilla extract
4 eggs
11/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp salt
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

• 
  
• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Prepare a 9x13 baking dish with foil.
• Combine the  butter, sugar, and vanilla in a bowl. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, mixing well 
• Mix  flour, cocoa powder, and salt in a bowl. Gradually stir flour mixture into the egg mixture until blended. Stir in the chocolate chips. Spread the batter evenly into the prepared baking dish.
• Bake in preheated oven until an inserted toothpick comes out clean, 35 to 40 minutes. 

Cookie Dough Layer

After the brownies had cooled, I prepared the cookie dough: I basically combined all these ingredients into a bowl 

2 cup flour

4 tablespoons flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt (can be left out or reduced to just a pinch)

1 cup margarine

12 tablespoons granulated sugar

12 tablespoons brown sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

water (add small amounts until the dough is proper consistency( about 1/8 cup at a time to avoid making it )

Fudge Frosting: 

6 tablespoons butter, softened

2 2/3 cups confectioners' sugar

1/2 cup cocoa

1/3 cup milk

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

1. cream butter 

2. add in sugar and cocoa

3. stir in milk slowly 

4. add vanilla 

Next, I put the cookie dough on the brownies, put it into the fridge for a bit and then frosted it.  This is it! 

Red Velvet Brownie Cake

With the amazing success of my cookie dough brownies, I had a lot to live up to for my second house mate who had a birthday exactly a week later.  Going back to the "hinterest" board, I had many options; however, I decided to go with a red velvet oreo truffle brownies.  Anything I have ever made with oreo truffle mix (crushed up oreos and cream cheese) has been pretty rockin'.  So I could not really see anyway that this could go wrong.  I used the following recipe (I did have it though since I wanted to fit it into a round cake pan): http://saorganics.com/red-velvet-oreo-truffle-brownie-bars/  

The result: the best creation I had ever made (in the opinion of my housemates)- I still thought the cookie dough brownies were pretty good (the brownies bias). I was very proud of my decoration as well- shaved white chocolate can make anything look better. 

Irish Soda Bread 

There are two main times when I like to bake: 1) when I have nothing going on 2) when I have way too much going on and just blow it off by baking.  This bread product was a classic example of the latter.   I had an enormous amount of studying to do, but figured celebrating my Irish heritage was significantly more important than learning about the muscles of the larynx.   I had always seen recipes for irish soda bread online and was intrigued by the simplicity of the recipe: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/irish-soda-bread-recipe.html. I normally am not a big fan of things with raisins in them- I mean, what can raisins go in that chocolate chips would not be better? However, I realized the specific recipe I found didn't actually call for raisins- it called for currants.  I had never had currants before, but I figured I would just go all out.  Anyways, the end product was very delicious- it had a tint of orange and the currants complemented it perfectly. 

Anyways, so there we have it- march madness.  Luckily march isn't over yet and i'm on spring break: so hopefully I will be back on soon!