Cubicle kitchen: Monster Blondies

After my foray into wittily-named baked goods, I started thinking of these as 'Zombie Marilyns', but I already had to explain what Monster Blondies were, so getting any more witty would have negatively impacted understanding.  And since my work is all about creating understandable, usable content, it would be ironic for me to name these something that confused them and kept them from being able to eat them.

Basically, I took smitten kitchen's wonderful base recipe for infinitely adaptable blondies and overloaded it with even more add-ins than she allows for (making them into monsters), then used a much larger pan to make them thinner.  They end up a little more like thick cookie bars than brownies.  But really, I'm not sure where the line is drawn between blondies and cookie bars.  They are moist like fudgy brownies, but with the slight chewiness of a cookie.  Making them thinner also allowed me to slice them into long, narrow triangles rather than the usual small square.

I also tried to get a little cute with my photo for these treats.  Since they had 'Monster' in the name, I wanted to take their picture with my own knitted monster, Union Jack.  And because I had cut them into triangles, it seemed like a fun idea to arrange them like bunting for a little monster party.  Here's the best picture I was able to take:

Now, while I think this is adorable, it's not really the best way to feature the recipe.  So I took a slightly more boring but informative photo as well.  I'm just going to have to rely on the colors of the Mini M&Ms to draw you into the deliciousness.

Monster Blondies
Recipe from smitten kitchen: blondes, infinitely adaptable
Makes a 9" x 13" pan

My notes:

• I added about 1 1/2 cups assorted chocolate candies: Mini M&Ms, chopped Snickers, Brookside Dark Chocolate Pomegranate, some nuts, etc. 
• I baked my blondies in a 9" x 13" pan lined with parchment paper. This is about twice the size of the pan originally used, so you get a thinner blondie that's more like a thick cookie bar than a blond brownie.
• I cut my pan of blondies in half longwise and then sliced narrow triangles from that.
• I also substituted about half of the all-purpose flour for whole wheat flour.  You know, to make it healthy.

Cubicle kitchen: Cheese Fudge Brownies

I know that the 'rules' of good grocery shopping dictate that you should go in with a list, and come out with only what was on that list.  And I do make lists to make sure that I don't get home and realize that I've forgotten the eggs or anything, but part of the fun for me is exploring the aisles and seeing what they have.  You never know what you're going to find: multigrain and pretzel croissants in the bakery, bubble gum sparkling water in the soda aisle, and chocolate cheese fudge in the deli section.  All of these are real items that I have discovered and purchased from the grocery store.  And not even from a fancy one like Whole Foods, just the regular old HEB.

But so far the chocolate cheese fudge is the only one of those to make it into my baking.  It was on clearance, and it was just too intriguing not to try.  I sliced off a little to try as-is; it was like a creamy fudge you might get from a fudge shop, but not nearly as sweet.  Tasty enough, but I couldn't imagine finishing the entire block myself, so I decided to bake it into something.  Exactly what I wasn't sure, because I wasn't sure what the texture of a melted cheese fudge would be like.  Which is why I ended up settling on brownies, because it wouldn't really matter if the pieces of fudge completely melted away or stayed as chocolate chip-like chunks.

The result was somewhere in between, making these extra-moist and creaming brownies.  Using a chocolate extract I found in a local spice shop also added to the chocolate factor, especially aromatically.  So even though they look like one of my more straight-forward treats, there's always something different going on.

Do you ever just grab something from the shelves because you wonder what it's like?  Any success or horror stories?

Cheese Fudge Brownies
Adapted from Ghiradelli's Award Winning Brownies (from the back of a can of cocoa)
Makes 1 pan

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup butter, melted and slightly cooled
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup sweetened cocoa mix
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon chocolate extract (can substitute with vanilla)
• 2/3 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 block Kelly's Kitchen Chocolate Cheese Fudge, chopped into chunks

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350°.
2. Mix together butter with sugar and cocoa.  Add eggs and extract, stir to combine.
3. Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt.  Mix in the dry ingredients and stir until combined.
4. Fold chunks of cheese fudge into the batter.
5. Spread batter into a prepared 8" or 9" pan.  Bake for 25-30 minutes.
6. Allow to cool before cutting into squares.

Cubicle kitchen: Gooey Peppermint Brownies

I felt a little unseasonal bringing Lime Cracker Parfaits in for the first week.  I think of citrus flavors as a refreshing flavor for hot weather, and that tart sensation feels somehow wrong when it's so cold outside.    If you're going to have a refreshing winter sensation, it should be peppermint, right?

Of course, trying to match baked goods to the weather is a futile effort in Texas, because there is just no telling.  Last week, for example.  There it was, lovely and mild in the high 60s, and then two days later we had a snowpocalypse.  Well, a snowpocalypse as far as Central Texans were concerned.  What people who have real winters would see is less than an inch of sleet and a little bit ice on the overpasses.

Put it this way: there is more minty glaze on these brownies than there was snow on the ground.  Unlike ice on the roads, though, you can never have enough minty glaze.

Gooey Peppermint Brownies
Just a boxed mix with a little extra chocolatey chill.  Brr!

Makes one 8 x 8 pan

Ingredients

• 1 box of Peppermint Bark Brownie Mix
• Additional ingredients as called for in Mix
• 1 1/2 cups chopped mint chocolates (such as After Eight, Andes Thins, Ritter Sport Peppermint, etc.)
• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon peppermint extract
• 2-3 Tablespoons milk, enough to achieve desired glaze consistency

Directions

1. Mix brownie batter as directed, stirring in the chopped chocolate just before pouring into the pan and baking.
2. You can glaze the brownies immediately after baking while warm or after cooling.  In a small bowl, mix powdered sugar, extract, and milk.  Add the milk a Tablespoon at a time and stir until you have the right consistency (you can drizzle, but it's not too drippy).

Cubicle kitchen: Trader Joe's Brownie Bites

I am counting down the days until Trader Joe's comes to Austin, although I know that even when they open, I will probably need to give it a wide berth in order to avoid getting trampled by other ravenous TJ fans.  In the meantime, I have some Trader's booty from the Houston and San Antonio locations I have visited in the recent months.

I always hear about how great the store brand is in particular, for quality and value.  That's why I wanted to try out this brownie mix just as it was, but I couldn't ignore my primal instinct to mix things together and try something new.  So I went for brownie bites rather than a pan cut into squares, which allowed me to break my batter into a few categories.  There were countless possibilities, but I restricted myself to just four:

• Original: I had to leave some as just plain old truffle brownies.  Which sounds like an oxymoron to me, but there ya go.
• Chocolate chip: A few 'spare' milk chocolate chips sprinkled on top, because more chocolate is rarely wrong.
• Caramel center: Again, 'spare' soft caramel candies, submerged in brownie goodness.  And again, because adding caramel can't really be wrong either.
• Cookie butter: Also of the TJ brand, I thought it only appropriate to swirl some of this on top of a few.

Aside from getting to mix things up, I feel like I was able to do a little informal anthropologizing based on which flavor brownie bite disappeared faster.  Turns out, cookie butter is too intriguing to pass up, so that came in first place.  Caramel was a close second, though, and extra chocolate chips perhaps an expected third.  Coming in last were the demure originals, but they still made a good showing.  Or rather, tasting.  it all served to only heighten my cravings for the Austin location...this fall in Rollingwood!

Trader Joe's Brownie Bites
makes 36 brownie bites

Ingredients:

• box of Trader Joe's Brownie Truffle Baking Mix (or other brownie mix)
• eggs and butter/oil as directed by the mix
• additional mix-ins: chocolate chips, Speculoos cookie butter, soft caramel candies, nuts, M&Ms, etc.

Directions:

1. Take a clean mini-muffin pan and spray generously with non-stick spray.  Then spray some more.
2. Follow the directions for the mix to create the batter, including preheating the oven to the correct temperature.
3. Scoop the batter into the tins, until they are only about half to two-thirds full.  Add in whatever mix-ins you'd like.  
• For soft caramels: cut in half first, then press into the batter until mostly submerged.
• For cookie butter: Take a small dollop of cookie butter and swirl it onto the top of the batter with a knife.
• For chocolate chips, nuts, or other candies: you can either sprinkle them on top (if you want them in the batter itself, you'll need to combine before scooping into the tins).
4. Bake until toothpick inserted comes out clean, about 15 minutes.
5. Allow to cool in the pan a few minutes before popping out of the pan and cooling on wire rack.

Cubicle kitchen: Magic of Love Brownies

(I didn't get a chance to write up last week's treat, so I'm catching up now.)

Valentine's Day can be taken sincerely or cynically.  Either it should be the most romantic date night of the year, or it's a conspiracy to sell flowers and Hallmark cards.  I've fallen somewhere in the middle with office treats the past two weeks that have hinted at the theme of the holiday.

Last week, it was chocolate and cherries.  To me, that's the first thing I think of, I just imagine a heart-shaped box of cherry cordials.  Of course, I imagine them being eaten while sitting on the sofa and watching TV in pajamas rather than being given them by an actual valentine, but that's where the cynicism comes in.

These brownies, however, were not cynical, they were delicious and decadent.  And the fact that it left me with leftover sweetened condensed milk was a complete bonus.  The recipe is a play on magic layer cookie bars, but using brownies and whatever mix of toppings you'd like.

Chocolate Cherry Brownies
makes a 7" x 11" pan

I adapted Bake or Break's recipe by using a boxed brownie mix, combined with cherry-flavored chocolates (like M&Ms and 3 Musketeers) and some dried cherries.

Cubicle kitchen: Red Velvet Brownies

After more than a year of working on a particular project, and having launch dates continually pushed back for reasons which continue to pop up out of unexpected places, reaching any sort of finish line feels like something to be celebrated.  It isn't what we initially planned, and it isn't done by any means.  In all likelihood, it will never be done because it will constantly evolve.  But there was a mark of completion that I was able to check off this week, and thus, baked goods needed to be particularly good.

To me, that means red velvet.  There is a right way to do red velvet, with buttermilk and cocoa and not just using food coloring and chocolate cake.  I aim to one day complete a true red velvet myself.  But for now, when I do red velvet, I'm cheating.  In more ways than one, because these came from a cake mix.  The recipe itself even comes from Duncan Hines.  I like taking something basically readymade and doctoring it up to make it my own.

I followed the recipe, substituting cocoa-roasted almonds for the walnuts for that additional chocolate factor.  I also ended up with about 3/4 a cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips, but I filled in the rest of the cup with some white and milk chocolate chips as well.  Because I like my brownies to have as much chocolate  as possible.  Not just because it's chocolate, but because I prefer a dense, chewy brownie.  It may be made from cake mix, but it's not supposed to be cakey.  I also didn't do the fancy frosting marbling, and I considered just leaving them 'naked', because they were already rich enough on their own.  Instead, I just used a reduced-sugar canned frosting.  It was in the pantry, and, um, reduced sugar means it's not that bad for me, right?

I say me, but really I mean me and everyone I work with.  Because I'm not taking full responsibility for a tray of those things.  No no no no, I must spread the guilt around to those near and dear to me.  And so I set out another temptation in our little cubicle kitchenette/coffee area:

I like that someone took the initiative to get a knife involved to cut even smaller pieces.  The person who did this did not just eat half a piece, though.  He cut half a piece so that he would only have eaten a total of one and a half rather than two.  Maybe next week I'll bring something 'healthier' in to make them feel good about themselves.  Like muffins.  Healthy, healthy muffins.

Cubicle kitchen: No Pudge, Yes Coffee Brownies

Having just decried weight control instant oatmeal, I must admit to having used a ready-made mix that sells itself based on being 'light' for this week's baking adventures.  Behold, in a truly tiny pic:

For me, No Pudge Fudge Brownies were something I wanted to try because:

• I had heard of them through Hungry Girl, and I like to try some of the more gimmicky foods once in a while
• They only require one additional ingredient to be added to the mix, non-fat vanilla yogurt, which I already have in the fridge almost all of the time anyway
• They were on sale

Okay, so I took this box and followed the instructions like a good little baker.  I mixed the chocolate-y powder with the yogurt until it was a batter (much like any other brownie batter, a bit on the thicker side if anything), poured it into my parchment-lined 8x8 pan, spread it evenly, then baked according to the time and temperature on the box.

One thing I did do, because I'm 99% good little baker, 1% wacky rebel, was add instant coffee.  This particular box of mix was of a Cappuchino variety, so I thought I'd go ahead and give it a helping hand in the caffeine department.  I added a few spoonfuls.  After all, these were destined for a meeting, I wanted to keep everyone perky!

The result was moist, fudgy brownies with a definite coffee kick.  Again, I very much enjoyed eating the bits that stuck to the knife as I cut them into squares.  I've heard that you should be able to use the non-fat yogurt as your only add-in for any old brownie mix, but the one time I tried it, the results were tragic.  I might try it again, but in the meantime, I happen to have gotten an extra box of this mix anyway.  Did I mention they were on sale?