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.