Brownies and Bourbon!

So my mom gave me a brownie cookbook for the holidays last year, and I hardly bothered to crack it (sorry Mom!). I was trying to come up with something to bake this evening, and I decided to take a look. Low and behold I found a brownie recipe that called for BOURBON!

The brownie batter:

1 1/4 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup butter
4 squares unsweetened chocolate
4 squares semisweet chocolate
2 cups sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla

So I mixed that all together, and threw in some secret ingredient while I was at it. Popped it in the oven at 350 for about 40 minutes, and took it out to cool

The fun part comes next. I'm not patient by any standard, so though I should have waited long for the brownies to cool, I hopped right on to making the topping.

Praline Icing Recipe:

5 tablespoons butter
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
3 tablespoons bourbon
2 cups confectioners sugar.

So I melted together the butter and the brown sugar until it was all melty and bubbly. Then I was supposed to add the three tablespoons of bourbon. But I added six. Cause that's how I roll. And I used my favorite... American Honey. Mmmmmm, yummy. Some of it may have spilled straight into my mouth. What a tragedy!

Now for the confectioners sugar. I realized partly through the recipe I realized my powdered sugar was at work for our epic Mario Kart gingerbread house (trust me there is a post to come on that one!). So I had to substitute. I took two cups of sifted granulated sugar and two teaspoons of cornstarch. I threw that in the blender and blended it all together. Hooray for ghetto powdered sugar!

Anyway, so stirred that all into the praline mixture until it was nice and smooth and poured it all over the brownies. Ok, so I tasted a bit as well, and dear gods is it delicious. The extra bourbon was totally the right choice!

Hooray for bourbon and brownies! Fanfuckingtastic!

Peanut Butter Dark Chocolate Brownies

It's been a while since I've baked much, but I felt like baking today. Besides, I haven't fed my new coworkers any of my crack yet ^_-

You want to mix together a cup of sugar, an egg, a splash of vanilla, a cup of flour, 1/4 tsp salt, and 1/2 tsp baking powder. In a microwave safe container, melt down a nice chunk of butter (1/4 a stickish) and 3-5 squares of baking chocolate (depending how chocolatey you like). And cause these are dark chocolate, go ahead and throw in an extra square. You know you want to. Mix that in with the rest of your batter. This time around I also threw in a dash of cinnamon and a slightly larger dash of nutmeg. Just trust me on that. And some secret ingredient... because secrets make everything taste better.

I might as well be endorsed by Reese's, because I love baking with Reese's Peanut Butter Chips. They are super tasty and make pretty much any recipe better. So to mix in that peanut butter flavor, I melted down a full bag, and added them to the mix. Usually I'd do half peanut butter chips, and half actual peanut butter, but I don't have any at the moment. I swear this works just as well; using the real peanut butter is just a cheaper option. If you're going to go straight peanut butter and ignore the deliciousness of the peanut butter chips... add some extra sugar.

Anyway batter -> pan -> oven -> delicious.

After work edit:

My coworkers devoured these before lunch. And baking is totally the way to make friends at work. They all had to come tell me how much they loved them!

Better-Than-Sex-Heath-Bar-Brownies

It has been said many times that my brownies are better than sex. Brownies are the cornerstone of my baking. Heath Bar Brownies are among my favorites.

You want to mix together a cup of sugar, an egg, a splash of vanilla, a cup of flour, 1/4 tsp salt, and 1/2 tsp baking powder. In a microwave safe container, melt down a nice chunk of butter (1/4 a stickish) and 3-5 squares of baking chocolate (depending how chocolatey you like. I went with 4). Mix that in with the rest of your batter. At this point I add some secret ingredient. This is a good time to add some love, or Jesus (mmm fresh ground Jesus), or whatever makes you feel better.

Then grab a bag of Heath Bar bits. The Hershey's folks recommend topping your brownies with them, but I prefer dumping about half the bag right into the mix. Trust me, it's delicious. Then you can pour the mix into a baking pan (I prefer a 9X9 silicone pan myself) and toss it in the over. I'd say 350, but my oven is made of evil, and I have to keep it around 300 to keep things from burning.

So keep an eye on them. When they start to look almost done, pull the pan out of the oven. If you've managed not to consume the rest of the delicious Heath bits, sprinkle some on top of the brownies, and toss them back in for a few more minutes. Just like that, you too can have Better-Than-Sex-Heath-Bar-Brownies