The Perfect Fudgy Brownie

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Last week it was birthday time again at my work.  We had 3 more birthdays to celebrate this month and I wanted to bring something in to work to share with everyone.  

This brownie recipe has been going around social media like crazy so I had to jump on the band wagon and try it for myself.  The brownies have great flavor, very rich, but I was bummed because I think I over cooked my batch.  My co-workers told me to feel free to keep testing out the recipe, and they will keep eating all the test batches,  haha but I think I just cooked them for a few minutes too long.  I was hoping for a more "fudgy" brownie and I think it would have been achieved if I had just taken them out of the oven a little sooner.  

Oh well, next time they will be perfect and I will be sure to post an update!

Happy Birthday Gina!

Fudgy Brownies - Adapted from Buns In My Oven

Yield: 24 Brownies
Ingredients:
1 Cup Butter, unsalted
2 1/4 Cups Sugar
4 Large Eggs, room temp
1 1/4 Cups Cocoa Powder, unsweetened
1 Teaspoon Salt
1 Teaspoon Baking Powder
1 Teaspoon espresso powder, optional (I used 1 packet of Starbucks VIA and dissolved it into the vanilla)
1 Tablespoon Vanilla Extract
1 1/2 Cups Flour
2 Cups Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips

Directions:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 9x13 baking dish.
2. In small saucepan over low heat, melt butter completely. Stir in sugar and continue cooking for 1-2 minutes, stirring constantly. Do not allow sugar mixture to boil.
3. Pour butter mixture into the bowl of a kitchen Aid mixer or a large bowl and let it cool for 5 minutes.
4. Beat in cocoa powder, eggs, salt, baking powder, espresso powder, and vanilla extract. Mix until well combined.
5. Stir in the flour and chocolate chips until well combined.
6. Spread into prepared pan (batter will be very thick and sticky) and bake for about 25 minutes, until a tester comes out mostly clean. The edges should be set and the center should still look slightly moist, but not uncooked. Cool on a wire rack.
7. Enjoy with a glass of cold milk!

recipe from King Arthur Flour

Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Extravaganza Cupcake

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Today we have a guest blogger.  I hope you enjoy it!

Hi everyone,  my name is Ireland and I am Merlot's neighbor.  I am a 4th grader at San Elijo Hills Elementary school.  I really wanted to learn how to make buttercream and swirl it on cupcakes.  I am asking Santa for my own Kitchen Aid Mixer so I can do this at my house.

Today I came over to make to make these cupcakes.  They have a surprise peanut butter cup in the middle.   We picked this recipe because we had a lot of Halloween candy left over.  We put one Reese's on the bottom and covered them with chocolate cupcake batter.   While they were cooling, we made the buttercream.  We whipped the butter super duper fast and then added a ton of powdered sugar and peanut butter.  We swirled it up high and drizzled the cupcakes with chocolate.  We cut up Reese peanut butter cups into pizza slices and placed them right on top to finish them off.

We brought the cupcakes around to all our neighbors and they LOVED them!  My little brother was like "yum, yum, yum, yum!"

Hope you enjoy these cupcakes as much as we did!

Chocolate Cupcakes - Adapted from Glorious Treats

Yield: 24 standard sized cupcakes

Ingredients:

2 Cups Sugar
1 3/4 Cups Flour
3/4 Cup Unsweetened Cocoa (best quality available)
1 1/2 Teaspoons Baking Powder
1 1/2 Teaspoons Baking Soda
1 Teaspoon Salt
3 Eggs, room temp
1 Cup Milk - We used 2%
1/2 Cup Vegetable Oil
2 Teaspoons Vanilla
1 Cup Boiling Water

24 Reese's Peanut Butter Cups (small size, not mini)

Directions-

1. Line muffin tin with paper liners and put one peanut butter cup in the middle of each liner. Heat oven to 350.
2. In a large mixing bowl, stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
3. Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla. Beat on medium speed for one minute.
4. Stir in boiling water (the batter will be thin, don’t worry, this is right).
5. Fill liners 2/3 full with batter.  About 1/4 cup per cupcake.
6. Bake cupcakes for approximately 20-22 minutes.
7. Cool completely on wire rack before frosting.

Peanut Butter Buttercream - Goddess of Baking
Ingredients:
3 Sticks Butter, unsalted and room temperature
1 Cup Creamy Peanut Butter
2 Tablespoons Vanilla
5 1/2 Cups Confectioners' Sugar, sifted
6-8 Tablespoons Heavy Cream - I used about 4 tablespoons milk

Directions:

1. In the bowl of a stand mixer, fitted with the whisk attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, cream butter and peanut butter on medium speed until fluffy. 
2. Turn your mixer down to low speed and slowly add in the confectioner’s sugar, and continue mixing until well blended.
3. Add vanilla and 4 tablespoons of heavy cream or milk. Blend on low speed until moistened. 
4. Add an additional 1 to 4 tablespoons of heavy cream until you reach the desired consistency. Beat at high speed until frosting is smooth and fluffy
5. Pipe frosting onto cooled cupcakes.
6. We also drizzled the cupcakes with chocolate.
7. ENJOY!!

Browned Butter Brown Sugar Cookies

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Do you love butter?  Do you love brown sugar and vanilla too?  Silly questions?  Well if you said "heck yes!" to any of those questions, then you will love these cookies.  

This post is actually for my 4 year anniversary of Goddess of Baking.  A lot has changed in the last four years since I started this blog.  This whole thing started while bored in biology class my senior year of college.  Since then, I have worked 3 totally different jobs, traveled the world, moved back to San Diego, bought a house, became an aunt to little Ben, and married the man of my dreams.  In the four years, I baked in four different kitchens, but have settled into my new kitchen nicely.  I now work for a catering company and get to be around food all day.  Its pretty cool.  I worked planning weddings on the side for 5 years and now I work on the catering sales side of weddings.  I hope you have enjoyed my blog over the years, and I am going to keep the recipes coming in hot from now on.  Thank you to all my family and friends for all the support me and I hope you have all enjoyed reading my posts.  

Enough about me and back to the cookies...

If you like butter, and you like brown sugar, then you will love this cookie.   

It was crunchy on the outside and yet still chewy and gooey on the inside.

Enjoy with a large glass of milk, and try not to eat the whole stack.

Just one more for good measure. 

Browned Butter Brown Sugar Cookies - Adapted from Sweet Pea's Kitchen
Ingredients:
14 Tablespoons Butter, unsalted
1 3/4 Cups Packed Light Brown Sugar, plus 2 tablespoons for rolling the cookies in
2 Cups Flour, plus 2 tablespoons
1/2 Teaspoon Baking Soda
1/4 Teaspoon Baking Powder
1/2 Teaspoon Salt
1 Large Egg +1 Egg Yolk, room temp
1 1/2 Tablespoons Vanilla
2 Tablespoons Granulated Sugar, for rolling the cookies in

Directions:

1. In a large skillet over medium-high heat, melt butter. Continue cooking, swirling pan constantly until butter is dark golden brown and has nutty aroma, 3-5 minutes. Remove from heat and transfer to a large heatproof bowl. Let cool for 15 minutes.  Be sure to not over cook the butter, it is a very fine line between browned butter and burnt butter.  If you are a browned butter newbie, here is a good guide -  How Sweet Eats
2. Preheat oven to 350 and line a large baking sheets with parchment paper.
3. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt; set aside.
4. In the bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, beat together the browned butter and 1 3/4 cups brown sugar until combined and no lumps remain, about 2 minutes.
5. Add egg, yolk and vanilla and mix until smooth, about 30 seconds. Add half of the flour mixture and mix for 15 seconds. Add the remaining flour mixture and beat until just incorporated.
6. Place the remaining 2 tablespoons of brown sugar and 2 tablespoons of sugar for rolling in a shallow bowl. Roll one heaping tablespoon of dough into ball between your palms, roll the ball in the sugar, and then place it on the prepared baking sheet spacing the balls about 2 inches apart (you should be able to fit 12 cookies on each sheet).
7. Bake cookies until tops are puffy and slightly cracked, about 10 to 12 minutes.  Transfer the baking sheet to a wire rack and let the cookies cool on the sheet for 2 minutes, then using a wide metal spatula, transfer the cookies to the rack to cool completely.
8. Enjoy!!

Recipe Note: Use fresh brown sugar, as older (harder and drier) brown sugar will make the cookies too dry.

Pecan Pie

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This weekend my husband and I hosted Friendsgiving at our house for 14 of our close friends.  I figured that now that I am a wife, I should probably figure out how to cook a turkey and host a large dinner party.  I love hosting parties, but the turkey part made me nervous.

It was a crazy week at work but I planned well and I managed to get all my shopping and preparing done by Friday.  I bought a 15 pounder turkey and used Alton Brown's Roast Turkey recipe.  I was a little nervous as this was my first attempt to ever cook anything bigger then a chicken breast or a steak.  My husband and I had to look up videos on youtube on how to get the innards out of a turkey, yes a little embarrassing.  After brining the turkey for about 16 hours, we roasted it to a perfect golden brown and gobbled it all down.  Still learning how to carve a turkey though, hopefully ill do better next year.

We had a huge feast of delicious food that all my friends helped out with.  

Dinner was a great success!

(I may have gone a little Pinterest crazy with the place settings)

We took a break to make room for pie.  I made this pecan pie and my friends brought an apple pie and a pumpkin pie.  I love fresh whipped cream, so I put a pint of heavy whipping cream and 3 tablespoons of sugar into the Kitchen Aid mixer for a few mins until soft peaks formed.  Then voula, fresh whipped cream to put on top of your pie! Super easy and much better then the canned stuff.

The pie recipe is from The Pioneer Woman and if you use store bought crust, you can get this pie in the oven in less then 10 minutes.  I was a little overwhelmed with all the other cooking I had to do that I skipped making homemade crust this time and used Pillsbury crust.  The recipe is perfectly sweet and again, very easy!

Hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving with your family and friends.

What are some of your family traditions for the holidays?  Fried turkey?  Turducken?

 What kind of pie or desserts do you make?

Pecan Pie - Adapted from The Pioneer Woman
Yield - 1 Pie, about 12 small slices
Ingredients:
1 Unbaked Pie Crust, homemade or Pillsbury
1 Cup White Sugar
3 Tablespoons Brown Sugar
1/2 Teaspoon Salt
1 Cup Corn Syrup
1 Teaspoons Vanilla
1/3 Cup Melted Butter (unsalted)
3 Whole Eggs, beaten
1 Cup (heaping) Chopped Pecans - I think I used about 1.5 Cups of Pecans

Directions:

1. Roll out your pie crust and put into your pie tin/pan.  
2. Next, mix (you can use a fork or a whisk) the sugar, brown sugar, salt, corn syrup, butter, eggs, and vanilla together in a bowl.
3. Pour chopped pecans in the bottom of the unbaked pie shell.
4. Pour syrup mixture over the top. Cover top and crust lightly/gently with foil. Bake pie at 350º for 30 minutes. Remove foil, then continue baking for 20 minutes, being careful not to burn the crust or pecans.
5. NOTE: PIE SHOULD NOT BE OVERLY JIGGLY WHEN YOU REMOVE IT FROM THE OVEN. If it shakes a lot, cover with foil and bake for an additional 20 minute or until set. Required baking time seems to vary widely with this recipe. Sometimes it takes 50 minutes; sometimes it takes 75!
6. Allow to cool for several hours or overnight. Serve in thin slivers.
7. Enjoy with your family and friends!

Chocolate Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Cookies

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Yesterday I went to a farewell lunch for one of my good friends who is moving to Pittsburgh on Tuesday.   I have worked for her coordinating weddings for the last five years and we became great friends.   I knew that I had to make her something delicious so I decided to make her these cookies.  We had a nice lunch by the beach with some of her other girlfriends and we all enjoyed these cookies.  We will miss you Andrea!!

In all honestly, I started out making another type of peanut butter cookie but had a little kitchen mishap.  I started out making Reese's overload cookies from Crazy for Crust.  I was using my brand new mixer and forgot to wash the bowl before putting in all the ingredients.  It wasn't until the end that I noticed the dough had turned black in some places.  After rubbing the inside of the bowl and my finger turning black, I realized the bowl had a thin layer of grease that was now mixed into my cookie dough.  Whoooops!  I had to throw away this batch and find a new recipe to make.  I washed the bowl twice, just to make sure all the grease was gone and started on this recipe.  

I was already running late to this lunch and didn't realized you were suppose to refrigerate the dough for an hour.  I only had about 10 minutes max to refrigerate the dough so that what I did.  The cookies still turned our great, even without refrigeration.  I hope you enjoy these cookies as much as we did!

Big thank you to my good friend Reese Foster who took some of these photos for me!  I had so much with the photo shoot and thanks for helping me in the kitchen!!  

Chocolate Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Cookies - Adapted from Sally's Baking Addiction

Yield: 2 Dozen
Directions:

1 1/2 Cups Flour
1/2 Cup Unsweetened Cocoa Powder
1/2 Teaspoon Baking Soda
1/4 Teaspoon Salt
1/2 Cup Unsalted butter, softened to room temperature (1 stick)
1/2 Cup Light brown sugar, packed
1/2 Cup Sugar
1/2 Cup Creamy (or chunky peanut butter - I used creamy)
1 Large Egg - room temperature
1 Teaspoon Vanilla
2 Tablespoons Milk
1 1/2 cups Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, chopped (about 8 Reese’s Cups)

Drizzle: 1/4 Cup Creamy Peanut Butter


Directions:

1. Mix the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt together in a large bowl. Set aside.
2. Using a stand mixer with a paddle attachment, beat the butter on high speed until creamy, about 2 minute. Scrape down the sides and the bottom of the bowl as needed. 
3. Switch the mixer to medium speed and beat in the brown sugar, granulated sugar, and peanut butter until combined. 
4. Beat in the egg and vanilla extract, scraping down the sides and bottom of the bowl as needed.
5. Turn the mixer off and pour the dry ingredients. Turn the mixer on low and slowly beat until a soft dough is formed. 
6. Beat in the milk on medium speed. Once mixed, beat in the peanut butter cups until evenly disbursed. The dough will be very thick and sticky. 
7. Cover the dough tightly with aluminum foil or plastic wrap and chill for at least 1 hour.  (This is ideal but if you are in a rush like I was, you can skip this step, or refrigerate for as long as you have)
8. Preheat oven to 350F degrees. Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats, or use an AirBake pan. Set aside.
9. Drop rounded balls of dough, about 1 Tablespoons of dough each, onto prepared baking sheets. Bake each batch for 10-12 minutes. 
10. The cookies will not have spread much, so gently press down on them with the back of a fork or spoon. Allow to cool on the cookie sheet before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
11. As the cookies are cooling, melt the peanut butter. Drizzle over cookies. Allow peanut butter to set for about 10 minutes. 
12. Enjoy with a cold glass of milk!