Espresso Cheesecake Brownies

Our good friends Mark and Mary just got puppy #5... a little pitbull named Ruby and we couldn't wait to meet her.  They invited us over for a yummy Italian dinner and asked us to bring wine and dessert. I haven't mastered (or tried for that matter) the art of wine making but dessert I can handle.
I chose these brownies because they seemed fairly easy but I thought they'd present nice. I was right.
Everyone commented on the shiny frosting and the espresso taste came through really nice on the cheesecake layer. I thought the brownie was a bit disappointing even though I used good chocolate. Overall a nice dessert for a dinner party.

Milk Chocolate Mini (and yet not mini) Bundt Cake

I am bundt cake obsessed. I want to do nothing but bake bundt cakes all day. I love chocolate but didn't want to waste money on a mini bundt cake pan so I doubled the recipe and made a big one. Dorie's recipe calls for walnuts in the swirl but I used semisweet chocolate. I used a bit too much corn syrup when making the glaze so it was tough to spread.

Mobile App?

I added the Blogger app to my phone. Wonder if this means I'll post the day I bake...

Classic Banana Bundt Cake

Last Sunday I was at the store and decided to buy bananas to make something later in the week. These freaking bananas took until Friday to be ripe enough to use. Halfway through the week Jeremy told me to put them in a paper bag to speed up the ripening process. I'm not sure if that is even a correct tip but I used it and they ripened in two days. So the point goes to Jeremy whether it should or not.

I decided on Thursday that I was still bundt obsessed so I bought the ingredients to make this cake. I read on one of the Tuesdays with Dorie site that Dorie recreated this cake as muffins a few years later and added in milk chocolate so I did the same. 

It smelled amazing when it came out of the oven. I am back to being more strict about what I eat so I knew I had to get this thing out of the house. Saturday morning I dropped off half with our friend Joe. We continued on with our weekend plans and I was able to drop off another hunk with Lisa. I was planning on providing the last bit to our friends on Sunday but plans fell through. I immediately ate a piece... I'm not proud but it was so good. A baker has to try their offerings, don't they? Well this baker sure does. 

Good For Almost Everything Pie Dough and Double-Crusted Blackberry Pie

My wonderful boyfriend knew he was going to have a rough day and asked that when the roughness was over there be a blackberry pie waiting for him at home. I was excited about making dough again. I learned a good lesson with this dough. Dorie made a point to say you should go more for a wet dough than a dry but I forgot and did not add enough water. I won't make that mistake again.

I could have rolled out the bottom dough a bit more but other than that Jeremy seemed very happy. Happy enough to eat it all... but not in one day.

Nutty, Chocolatey, Swirly Sour Cream Bundt Cake

I was super excited to have finally purchased my bundt cake pan. I had been staring at the bundt cake recipe section for what seemed like forever waiting for the day when I'd finally be able to make one. This recipe calls for walnuts and raisins in the swirl... I skipped those and went right for a few kinds of chopped chocolate.
The outcome was pleasant... you zest one orange and mix the zest with the sugar. This cake reminded me of my grandfather's Passover sponge cake. So much that I was supposed to bring it into work but I "forgot" and ate it all myself throughout the week. Though I do not think of him all day every day my grandfather pops into my head often and always with a good memory. I was Papa's girl... this cake makes me happy. I'll make it when I'm sad and he'll cheer me right up!

Coconut Butter Thins

These are not going to get very much attention from me. They were eh... not bad, not good. Another recipe down.

Tribute to Katherine Hepburn Brownies

These are amazing... amazing... no really they are ridiculous.

They pour into the pan as a very shallow batter. You bake them for just a half hour and they come out still a bit wet on top. But they are so good. Gooey, chocolatey... not for those who enjoy the cake like brownies. These are fudgy yumminess.

Cornmeal and Fruit Loaf

I had been looking for a recipe using dried fruit to see what that was like. This seemed as good as any... it came out really nice. I would say the dried fruit didn't make much of a difference. 

This bread was great pan toasted in butter and spread with jam.

Chocolate-Chocolate Cupcakes

I had been wanting to make these for a while so I figured what better day than February 6th. (Actually I have no idea why I chose that day but I'm writing this 5 weeks later so indulge me while I try to make this interesting.)

I decided to fill them with marshmallow fluff as Dorie suggests in her Playing Around section for this recipe. Unfortunately what I found is that it is very hard to fill with fluff. Each cupcake had one tiny line of fluff in them while I was concerned I had overfilled them. The glaze was great though and the cupcake nice and moist.

Thumbprints For Us Big Guys

Eh... nothing special here. These are not really my kind of cookie though. I believe my work people liked them. I used raspberry jam and they reminded me of jelly rings... without the chocolate so nothing like them at all.

French Chocolate Brownies

I am really bad at blogging. I'm on point taking the pictures but I get super behind on posting about my adventures. We only have one laptop and because I have both the Kindle Fire and my awesome Samsung Galaxy Nexus Jeremy mainly uses the computer. I have to make myself do better at this.

Here we go... I baked these brownies on February 3rd.

As I recall they didn't stand out as anything amazing.

Gingered Carrot Cookies

I altered this recipe quite a bit. I barely put in any ginger, used blueberry honey instead of raisins and extra coconut instead of pecans.

I think they came out pretty well... the honey caramelized while baking so there was a nice sugary crunch to the cookie while the carrot and coconut gave it some good texture.

Linzer Sables

A very simple almond cookie... roll it out, freeze it, cut out shapes, cut the middle out of half of them and bake. Fill with jam and make sandwich cookies... eh.

I don't know that anyone was super impressed.

Rick Katz's Brownies for Julia

These brownies have solidified my love of baking. I was a little scared of this recipe when I first read it. You have to melt the butter and chocolate and stir in sugar. Then you mix sugar and eggs and pour half of that mixture into the warm chocolate mixture. You can't stop mixing because the chocolate can cook the eggs. That seemed super scary to me so I avoided these for a while. It ended up being really easy.

After that you whip the balance of the sugar and eggs until it doubles in size and fold it into the mixture before adding the dry ingredients.

These brownies are amazing. So light and fluffy but fudgy at the same time. The people in my office were freaking out. They were the talk of the office (they actually were) and some very inappropriate food porn noises were heard while some people delighted in this afternoon snack.

This recipe will for sure be repeated in the very near future.

Chocolate Spice Quickies

I decided to leave the spice part out of these cookies. I'm getting to know my audience and my co-workers are not fans of the allspice, clove, nutmeg family. Actually... they seem to really dig the chocolate treats and tolerate the fruity kinds until more chocolate items are available. I may have made a mistake baking so much of the chocolately stuff first. Who is going to eat my cranberry upside down cake?

I thought these cookies were nice... not very flavorful but basically a plain chocolate flavored sugar cookie.

Honey Nut Brownies

Let's see if you've been paying attention...

Which ingredient listed in the title do you think I left out of this recipe?

So yeah, no nuts. I used peanut butter chips instead and everyone at the office thought they were yummy.

I decided I thought the honey flavor would be overpowering because you add a whole cup! I decided to use one of her tips and frost these brownies. I think it was a good addition.

Blueberry Brown Sugar Plain Cake

OK I admit it... I'm bad at keeping up on the blog. I love the baking and taking the pictures but when it comes to sitting down to share my baked good with the interweb I just don't want to.

So here I am... two weeks later and I have 6 recipes to share with you. Sorry all my loyal fans (hi Mom!)... I'll try to be better.

I had to whip egg whites again and this time I didn't screw the whole thing up. This cake was easy to make and looked like it tasted pretty good.

Jeremy had it the first day and said it tasted great (with of course his constant caveat that it would be better with blackberries).

I left it overnight wrapped and went to cut it in the morning to bring to work. It seemed to get a bit soggy so I decided not to bring it in. This is for sure an eat it the day you make it kind of thing.

Brrrrr-ownies

Brownies with York Peppermint Patties mixed in. Once they are cooled to room temperature slice and put in the fridge. Yum!

Dressy Chocolate Loaf Cake (the first and the second time...)

Last weekend I decided to make this loaf cake. We were supposed to have a new fridge delivered. They came, they scratched it, they took it back... it was a good time.

I went to make the cake anyway. I had just purchased a whole bunch of Pyrex so I figured I would try the loaf pan. Its supposed to bake 60-70 minutes. I baked it for 60, stuck the cake tester in and pulled the cake out. I waited the 5 minutes and went to turn it out onto the cooling rack upside down.

The top came out, the bottom stayed behind... it was a really great day in my house.
After it cooled I tried the part that actually baked and it tasted pretty nice so I told myself to try again this weekend.

This time I used the non-stick loaf pan, checked it with a knife, baked it for 70 minutes and it came out really well.

After it cools upside down you cut it into thirds horizontally and spread jam on each layer. I used seedless blackberry jam. Next time, more jam. Lots more jam.

Time to frost with semisweet chocolate and sour cream frosting.

For sure the next time it will have more jam and probably milk chocolate frosting.