Recipe #11: Cocoa Oatmeal Cookies

I have taken a bit of a break from making brownies, but not a break from baking.  I am excited because our church has started to have a fellowship time between services; I now have a place to take my baked goods so we do not eat them all here at home.

Last week I decided to make Cocoa Oatmeal Cookies.  I was still on an oatmeal baking kick, so I decided to give these cookies a try.

The only change I made to the recipe was to not add raisins and to add chocolate chips instead.  The resulting cookie reminded me of the no-bake chocolate oatmeal cookies, but a little less grainy. 

The cookies were apparently a hit because my container was empty when I went to pick it up.

As I have started on this baking quest, I have done some research on how best to add different ingredients like whole wheat flour to recipes.  In doing this research, I have learned some basic information about baking.

One detail I learned that was helpful in making these cookies is that if you want your cookies to come out soft and chewy, you need to keep the fats in the cookie as cold as possible.  In order to do this, I refrigerated the dough before I started baking the cookies and I put the dough back into the fridge while the other dough baked.

Someday, I would really like to take a class on the basics of baking.

Recipe #10: Chocolate Banana Bread

With a toddler and 6-month-old in the house plus the current great price on bananas, there is no shortage of this versatile fruit in our house.  I often try to buy extra bananas so I will have some nicely ripened ones for baking, but we tend to eat through them all rather quickly.

This last week I finally had some well-ripened bananas that were just waiting to be baked, so I decided to try this Chocolate Banana Bread recipe I found on the Money Saving Mom website.

Typically, I do not have much luck with banana bread, but this recipe came out perfect on the first try.  It even came cleanly out of the bread pan!

The Review

on a scale of 1 to 5

• Overall Rating: 5
• Recipe Difficulty
• Rating: 1 (easy)
• Mix together the dry ingredients; mix together the wet ingredients; mix the two together--it does not get much easier than that.

• Taste
• Rating: 5 (great)
• I don't recall having ever mixed chocolate and bananas before, but I found the flavors combine together well.
• The chocolate does not overpower the banana; instead they complement one another and both flavors come through.

• Texture
• Rating: 5 (great)
• The bread came out with the perfect quick bread texture.  The bread is moist from the bananas, but not mushy.

• Hints and tips
• I am a Pampered Chef fan and I love using their stoneware.  I found that I had to add about 5 minutes to the cook time to get it completely cooked.
• Instead of mashing the bananas, I cut them up and added them to the wet ingredients.  I then mashed them as I stirred the ingredients, but I left some little chunks.
• If you happen to be using the Weight Watchers point system, one twelfth of the bread equals 5 points.

• Would I make this bread again?
• Definitely.  I look forward to playing with the recipe by using whole wheat flour and either applesauce or Greek yogurt in place of some of the butter to see if I can make it healthier.

Recipe #9: Peanut Butter Bars

Last week I had it in my head that I really wanted to make something with peanut butter, oatmeal, and chocolate.  While I did not find an official brownie recipe with these three ingredients, I did find this recipe for Peanut Butter Bars that was a suitable substitute. 

I mostly followed the recipe except that I increased the amount of oats to 1 cup as recommended by one of the reviewers of the recipe.  They were a little drier than I hoped that they would be, but otherwise the bars had a good peanut butter and oats taste.  Next time I think that I will experiment a little with the wet ingredients to see if I can make it more moist.

I also baked them in a 9x9 pan instead of a 9x13.  I was afraid they would be a little too thin in the 9x13.  I had to increase the baking time about 15 minutes to make sure they baked through.

The Review

on a scale of 1 to 5

• Overall Rating: 3
• Recipe Difficulty
• Rating: 1 (easy)
• Another basic recipe where you throw the ingredients together without any unusual or extra steps. 

• Taste
• Rating: 4 (pretty good)
• The flavors balanced each other out well.  It had a good, but not overpowering, peanut butter taste.
• I am glad I doubled the amount of oatmeal in the recipe.  The taste of the oatmeal was present but again was not overpowering.
• I used milk chocolate chocolate chips because that is all I had in the house.  They tasted good on the top of the bars, but I would like to try it with semi-sweet or dark chocolate to get a stronger chocolate flavor without all the extra sweetness.

• Texture
• Rating: 3 (not terrible, but could be better)
• As with most peanut butter recipes, I felt that these bars were a little too dry.  I would like to make them more moist and chewy.

• Hints and tips
• If you want to taste more of a oatmeal, double the amount called for in the recipe.
• If you bake it in a 9x9 pan, increase the cook time to 40-45 minutes.

• Would I make these brownies (bars) again?
• Yes, but as I stated earlier, I plan to make changes to see if I can improve on the texture.

Recipe #8: Blonde Brownies I

For a Memorial Day get together, I decided to make a batch of brownies.  I was in the mood for chocolate, but not too much chocolate, so I decide to try Blonde Brownies I.

I doubled the recipe because I had the feeling a 9x9 pan of brownies would not be enough, and boy was I correct.  We did not bring any brownies home and my husband almost missed out on having one at the party. 

The Review

on a scale of 1 to 5

• Overall Rating: 4
• Recipe Difficulty
• Rating: 1 (easy)
• If you can make chocolate chip cookies from scratch, you can easily handle this recipe

• Taste
• Rating: 5 (good)
• With all the butter in this recipe, it is difficult for it to be anything but tasty
• The use of brown sugar instead of white also gives the brownie a richer taste
• The chocolate chips blended well with the brownie batter

• Texture
• Rating: 4 (good)
• The overall texture is very similar to chocolate chip bar cookies
• The brownies were a little tough, but I think it is because I overcooked them just a bit (I cut off the edges because I considered them to be too tough to take to the party)

• Husband's Opinion
• The husband liked the brownies (even the edges).  He was quite nervous that he almost missed out on having one at the party.

• Hints and tips
• If you make a double batch, you will need to cook the brownies for longer than 25 minutes.  I baked my for close to 50 minutes, but I think next time I will try 40 first.

• Would I make these brownies (bars) again?
• Yes.  These are a nice change from an all chocolate brownie while still having some chocolate taste.

Recipe #7: Ultimate Double Chocolate Brownies

Having some peppermint baking chips in my cupboard, I decided to take a regular chocolate brownie recipe and add the peppermint baking chips to make another mint brownie.  I chose to use the following recipe from the 2003 Taste of Home's Christmas Cookies recipe collection.

Ultimate Double Chocolate Brownies
3/4 cup baking cocoa
1/2 tsp baking soda
2/3 cup butter or margarine, melted, divided
1/2 cup boiling water
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup coarsely chopped pecans
2 cups (12 ounces) semisweet chocolate chunks

In a large bowl, combine cocoa and baking soda; blend in 1/3 cup melted butter.  Add boiling water; stir until well blended.  Stir in sugar, eggs and remaining butter.  Add flour, vanilla and salt.  Stir in the pecans and chocolate chunks.  Pour into a greased 13-in x 9-in x 2-in pan.  Bake at 350 degrees for 35-40 minutes or until brownies begin to pull away from sides of pan.  Cool.

The only change I made to the recipe was to add about 1 cup of peppermint chips to the batter and then I sprinkled the rest of the chips on the top of the brownies after they came out of the oven.  The chips did not stick to the top very well, so I waited until the chips melted and I spread them over the top the brownies.  Since the melted peppermint chips did not fully cover the brownies, I also melted about a cup and a half of vanilla chips, mixed in some peppermint extract and spread that over the top of the melted peppermint pieces.

The Review

on a scale of 1 to 5

• Overall Rating: 4
• Recipe Difficulty
• Rating: 2 (Mild difficulty)
• The recipe calls for a little more than just simply mixing the ingredients together with the addition of the boiling water, but overall the recipe comes together fairly quickly and easily.

• Taste
• Rating: 4 (good)
• The brownie has a good chocolate taste.  I could not really taste much of the peppermint in the brownie itself from the addition of the peppermint chips.  
• The chocolate of the brownie blends well with the peppermint topping.
• The taste of the topping reminds me of peppermint bark, which I guess it really is since it is a mixture of melted white chocolate chips and peppermint.

• Texture
• Rating: 4 (good)
• These brownies have a good, dense texture. 
• Just like peppermint bark, the topping is a bit firm and has a tendency to fall off while one eats the brownie.

• Husband's Opinion
• The husband likes the brownies and says that if he had these brownies before the previous mint brownies, he would really like them.
  

• Hints and tips
• Since the butter needs to be divided (in half), I simply melted each 1/3 cup of butter in separate bowls so I did not need to divide the entire amount after it was melted.
• Using my stoneware baking dish, I had to cook the brownies for 5 extra minutes (for a total of 45 minutes).

• Would I make these brownies (bars) again?
• I definitely would make the actual brownie recipe again, though I would make the mint topping from the chocolate mint bar recipe instead for the top if I wanted to give them a minty taste. 
• I don't know if I would add the peppermint chips next time, especially to the batter since it did not make much difference in the taste of the brownie itself.

Break from Brownies: A Very Cinnamony Thursday

I did not make any brownies last weekend because we were busy with other activities. 

Yesterday, I apparently had a craving for cinnamon and sugar because I made three different treats coated with cinnamon and sugar: cinnamon rolls, snickerdoodles, and pie crust cookies.

To make the cinnamon rolls, I used this sweet dinner roll recipe and split it in half.  Half of the dough I made into dinner rolls and the other half I made into cinnamon rolls.  Instead of using all white flour, I substituted 1 1/2 cups of whole wheat flour and then just used 2 1/4 cups white flour. 

Snickerdoodles are one of my husband's favorite cookie recipes.  I find this recipe works best for us.  It appears I was a little heavy handed with the cinnamon in the coating mix.

The final treat I made was pie crust cookies.  I did not make any pies yesterday; instead, I used the pie crust recipe from the Kitchen Aid mixer cookbook and used half of the dough to make the cookies.  I rolled the dough out until it was very thin, coated it with butter, and covered with cinnamon and sugar.  I then baked them for a little over 8 minutes at 450 degrees F. 

Now we have plenty of cinnamony treats to enjoy for the next few weeks.

Do you have a favorite cinnamon recipe?

Recipe #6: Caramel Brownies II

Caramel Brownie

I've decided to stay on the trend of trying out slightly more complex brownie recipes that include another flavor in addition to chocolate.  With the recent start of fall, I felt that caramel brownies would be a good choice.

Nearly all the recipes I looked at on allrecipes.com included the same basic ingredients and the same basic steps.  All the ones that I looked at involved using a cake box mix, usually German chocolate.  I decided to go with the recipe for Caramel Brownies II for no real specific reason except that it looked good. 

The Ingredients

The Bottom Layer

The Chocolate Chips

The Finished Product

The Review

on a scale of 1 to 5

• Overall Rating: 4
• Recipe Difficulty
• Rating: 3 (Moderate)
• The process of mixing the ingredients is relatively simple.  It takes a little bit of time to melt the caramels since it is important not to overheat the caramels, so the cook cannot be in a hurry. 
• The unwrapping of all the caramels is a bit time consuming as well.

• Taste
• Rating: 4 (good)
• With a layer of chocolate and caramel in the middle, how can one go wrong with the taste?  
• I noticed that the chocolate and caramel dominates the flavor so the taste of the actual brownie portion is lost.

• Texture
• Rating: 4 (good)
• These brownies are extremely soft and chewy because of the caramel.  Even after the brownies cooled completely, the caramel stayed soft and chewy.

• Husband's Opinion
• I don't have my husband's official opinion except that he said he liked the brownies when he first ate one.
  

• Hints and tips
• Definitely begin this process with melting the caramels and wait until they are nearly all melted before mixing the other ingredients
• I found that I had to cook the brownies for an additional 10 minutes past the recommended time.  This might come from the use of my stoneware pan.
• I recommend that you cook the brownies until they appear set in the middle since you cannot use a cake tester or toothpick to test the doneness.
• When you place the remaining brownie batter on the top of the melted caramel, you do not have to worry about the batter completely covering every portion of the base.

• Would I make these brownies (bars) again?
• The richness of the caramels would keep me from making these brownies very often, but it is an effective recipe that I would use again if I felt the urge for caramel in my brownies.
• I would be interested in trying this recipe again with a different flavor cake mix, like dark chocolate.