S’Mores topped Brownies
Recipe from Stolen Moments Cooking which I was shown by my workmate Jen.
I had told my mum I’d make a dessertish thing for our midwinter Christmas gathering and I’d been eying up some rather more complicated looking s’mores cupcakes and contemplating making marshmallow whip frosting and trying to work out how much time it would take. This brownies recipe looked much much easier, so I decided to make that instead.
I’ve never really made brownies before, since I know a few people who reliably make awesome (but different, and each the best ever) brownies. Although one of those people is living in Rarotonga now, so I wasn’t too sure what to expect from the recipe. I found it easy to follow and fast as well. It was very gooey and strange to deal with, but I managed to get it all into my slice tray without too much spillage.
Variations for the NZ baker include not bothering to wait for the mixture of chocolate, butter and sugar to cool to room temp for fear of it adhering permanently to the saucepan. Instead I just cooked it on a low heat and let it relax while I dealt with whisking the eggs and stuff. You can’t get graham crackers in NZ so I substituted girl guide biscuits chopped up in the kitchen whizz. I also used Cadbury dairy milk for the topping and pascall’s marshmallows cut in half with scissors.
Before the baking
I was quite excited watching it bake, although it was pretty hard to tell when the brownie was baked through since the usual ’shake the pan gently and see if it moves like fluid’ was thwarted by the sea of melted marshmallow on top. I gave it an extra five minutes to be safe and then stuck a skewer through a non-marshmallowed gap. It was still not cooked, but I figured it could finish off at my mum’s house.
When we came to eat the brownies they weren’t in fact cooked through. The edge parts and the corners were nice and cakey and the middle was nice and gooey. Kind of like chocolate pudding. It was still good but I think next time I’ll try and cook the brownies on their own before I add the topping, because I hate to give people baking which isn’t all baked through. I think it was to do with the size of my pan as well, the recipe indicates that you should bake it in a wider more shallow pan, and mine was small.
The reception of the brownies was very good, though.
Toasted marshmallows. Nom
The marshmallow caramelized along the side of the pan a bit, the Cadbury chocolate was delish on top and I think next time I make it I’ll put more on top. The biscuits were hard to make out though, so next time I think I’ll just crumble them with my rolling pin instead of crushing them in the whizz. I kind of wanted more crunch.
In conclusion, delicious. Will bake again. Probably quite soon.
Cookies of awesome
I’m big on biscuits. I’m big on biscuits straight from the oven so they’re all warm and melty. I’m also big on drooling over new recipes while sticking solidly to trusted old favourites like Highlander chocolate chip and the Ladies, a Plate afghan recipe which I have made a bajillion times now. (BTW, there is going to be a sequel to Ladies, a Plate! Second helping!)
What I’m trying to get at is that I sometimes have the fear of new recipes. For weeks I’ve been eying up this graham cracker recipe, but when I showed it to Lee he said Meh. Actually, he said ‘only if you make them into s’mores’, and I don’t have any marshmallows. Instead I showed him the other recipe I’ve been shyly looking up every couple of days peanut butter filled chocolate cookies, which I found on flickr. His eyes kind of glazed over.
I stuck on some Gossip Girl for company and made the recipe. It was easy enough with my trusty kitchen whizz. The rolling stuff into little balls and then covering them with the other kind of batter was time consuming but pretty fun. The result?
Om nom nom nom
Huge, sprawling, American style cookies that seduce you with their…uh…cracks…I have only eaten one. It’s a miracle of light cookie dough and smooth creamy peanutty centre. I think I groaned out loud. The good thing about them being so large is that you only have to eat one at a time and you feel satiated. Mostly I’ve been making really small cookies, so these ones look decadently huge. I can’t wait for Lee to get home and try one.
In conclusion, a good straight forward recipe with a very rewarding and delicious result, assuming you like peanuts and chocolate that is.
(And in case you were wondering where the Wednesday writing entry is, i had a long nap after shopping this afternoon, I have a mind blank on how to end my children’s book I’m writing and I’ve been trying to edit Kiki and procrastinating, hence the cookies. And the Gossip Girl.)
You may also notice in that picture my first attempt at crazy patchwork. I wouldn’t call it a success, but the owls are cute. More on patchwork soon.
Wednesday pie day
I was writing, I think I did a solid half hour, and I was blasting Mr Leonard Cohen and I was basking in the sun and then I just kind of…stopped. My mind was blank. I tried to keep writing and I managed it for a couple more pages and then I stopped again.
So I made a pie.
I wanted my old Little House on the Prairie recipe, which is in this black slipcover folder with a heap of other good recipes. This recipe folder has evaporated and is nowhere in my house. I checked all the places I thought it could have gotten to but no, gone. And I forgot completely that the recipe was here because my mind was blank. So I used this one, which differs in that there is sugar in the pastry.
Making apple pie is pretty fun, it’s easy just involved. I listened to Coldplay and Red Hot Chili Peppers and thought about tonight’s game of Fall and yeah. It was what I wanted to do. I am making progress on my novel, but something Debbie said in yesterday’s comments resonated with me: Sometimes the idea is great but it needs to simmer away in the back of your mind for a while for the inspiration to kick in.
So I’m not pushing it. I’m mellow and I’m zen and I’m allowing the novel to simmer away in the back of my mind. Nothing helps you become more zen than baking, assuming that you have all the ingredients you need, the recipe is simple to follow and you don’t use salt instead of sugar.
Mmmmm Apple pie
Point of Fashion: My lil outlaws
Current Obsession: pie!
Pikelets
I made the pikelets from the recipe in my favourite book Ladies, a Plate. It’s a pretty stock standard pikelet recipe except that it includes a tablespoon of golden syrup. It was quick and easy to put together.
I mixed it up with the electric hand beater the first time. The second time I did it I beat them by hand, the first mixture was better, so I’ll stick with the beaters in future. The hand mixed ones were a little lumpy but they still tasted good at the end. The mixture doesn’t make that many, so if there are many people I’m making them for I’d do a double or triple recipe. The regular mix was plenty for me and Lee’s breakfast on Sunday and for my Tuesday night roleplaying group.
Pikelets are a timing game. You have to let the pan heat for a while and then once they’re on you have to flip them as soon as they’re ready for it. When the bubbles come up and pop you have to flip them and then the other side only needs about 30 seconds. If you give them any longer then they start burning pretty darn fast.
The good thing about the slightly burned pikelets is that they’re still tasty with strawberry jam, bacon and bananas or just on their own. They just don’t look as nice.
As per my upbringing, and the instructions in the book pikelets must be served from a clean teatowel in a basket. The teatowel actually keeps them nice and warm and it looks all nice and homey. Delish!
Nom, delicious pikelets
Banoffee verdict
Not a thing of beauty
The second banoffee pie was not a thing of beauty, I’ll admit that right now. I managed to keep it intact for the drive up the coast and stuck it into my mum’s fridge as soon as we got there. I managed to cut up the pie with minimal pain, the banana slid around some but the all biscuit base was very easy to cut and pretty much stuck together as I’d hoped.
The pie was good with and without whipped cream on top. It was described variously by family and family friends as delicious, yummy, great and beautiful (as in taste rather than appearance). I enjoyed it too, the biscuit base was tasty and the caramel, even though it wasn’t diluted with cream wasn’t too rich. The extra banana made it a really good level of banana tasting. I’m pretty chuffed with that recipe. It’s easy and tasty and….well, what else do you need in a pie? 
It was great seeing so many people this weekend, Lee’s family yesterday, Giffy and Erik last night, my family and family friends today and then a visit to Matt and Debbie. I am going to do some editing for Debs, and I’m really looking forward to reading her book!
Point of Fashion: red unicorn
Current Obsession: Gossip Girl
Banoffee pie the second
I think it was the way that the last pie didn’t turn out perfectly made me determined to have another crack at making it. This time I used the recipe off the Highlander caramel can label. It goes like this:
Blend up a packet of wine biscuits so they were all crumbs, and added 100g of melted butter. Press it into a greased pie pan and chill for at least 30 minutes. The recipe recommended putting the caramel straight onto the base and then waiting to put the bananas onto the top right before you serve it. I didn’t like that idea because….I don’t know why, so I put a thin layer of caramel onto the base and then added the bananas.
The recipe asked for two bananas but Lee thought last week’s pie wasn’t banana-ry enough so I used three. Then I carefully covered them with the rest of the caramel and stuck it in the fridge. Tomorrow at lunch I shall cover the whole lot with whipped cream and see how it is……more tomorrow, with pictures!
Bonus list of things I am happy for right now: new Scrubs, Batgirl tshirt, seeing family, laughing at myself, neck rubs and singing ‘I could have lied’ by the Chilli Peppers. How about you?
Banoffee Pie
I used this recipe which is hella simple for Lee’s birthday request of banoffee pie (there are two spellings of banoffie. I’m going with the one most like toffee.) Lee got a can of Highlander caramel at the supermarket so I didn’t need to boil a tin for three hours.
I beat the caramel and cream together with the hand beaters to get optimum smoothness. The pastry was very easy to make because it made itself, you just get your Giffy to cut up the butter and chuck it in the food processer (the butter not the Giffy) with the flour and icing sugar and it makes itself.
Things to change for next time:
Grease the pie pan more. I mean, I greased it. I totally did, but apparently this pastry is sticky and it wanted to stay adhered to the pie pan.
Chill the pastry base for a while before baking it. I just put it in for the time the oven was heating up and I think it could have used longer.
bake the pastry for longer at a lower heat so that it cooks a bit better. It cooked ok, like it was brown at the edges, but the bottom of it could have used longer. Keep it in the oven until it pulls itself away from the edge of the pan. I love it when baking does that, it means it is easy to get out when it’s done.
When it came time to eat it I was still a bit edgy because…I’ve never had banoffee pie before. Generally if it’s on the dessert menu there’s something there I like more like warm chocolate cake with hot chocolate sauce. Mmm. But I figured everyone had said it was good pie and I knew what had gone into it was all good…so I ate it. And it was delicious. Not too rich, not too sweet. The pastry was really tasty, crumbly, biscuity. So banoffee pie was a huge success and I’m thinking I’d like to do little individual banoffee pies in ramekins next time. Because then it’s not an issue if the pastry sticks, because people will just chip out their own.
Thanks to Giffy for chopping up the butter and thanks to Erik for squeeing over Domestic Jenni and thanks also to Lee for challenging me to make new and different tasty baking.
Apple Pie success
Yesterday I got my frontier girl on and made an apple pie from scratch. Recipe?
I started by not following the first instructions in the recipe, which involve making everything you’re using cold, like chilling the bowl and the flour and all. I didn’t do that. I made a double recipe of “everyday family paste” which means I put a bunch of flour (2 1/2 cups) in a bowl and rubbed butter (siz tablespoons( through it with my fingers. Then, once it was pretty much uniformly coarse I added tablespoons on iced water until it made a dough. Then I realised it was meant to have salt in it, and I added that too.
The dough wasn’t smooth. I want it to be smoother next time. I cut it into two equal lots and put them in the fridge to be more cold.
After that I got Lee to peel apples so that I could then core, quarter and slice them. This took a while. I think I used something like ten apples. I sliced them and put them into a bowl in which I had zested a lime (I forgot to buy a lemon) and then squeezed the juice in.) The lime juice covered the apple pieces and it was all nice.
Once that was all done, I took one lot of pastry and rolled it out a lot. I put it into my new pie dish (pyrex-type, not ceramic) which I had buttered earlier. The dough was a bit fally-aparty, and I had to patch some holes with bits that had fallen off the edges. Then it was a matter of layering apple slices with a lot of brown sugar.
You’re meant to go apples, 1/3 cup of brown sugar, teaspoon of flour, apples, 1/3 cup brown sugar, teaspoon of flour, apples, 1/3 cup brown sugar, 1 teaspoon of flour. Then on top you put a pinch each of nutmeg, cinnamon and ground cloves and sprinkle on whatever’s left of the lime zest and juice. I was worried about the amount of sugar I was putting in, so I didn’t use the full 1/3 on the top layer. We didn’t miss it.
Finally you roll out the last bit of pastry and make a pie lid. I was getting excited by the turkey at this point, because it was ready, so I didn’t roll it out as much as I should of and had to stretch the pastry to the edge of the pie, but that’s alright. Cut some vents in the pie top and bake for about 40 minutes.
The pie was delicious. The pastry came out bland but surprisingly crisp and good. The blandness was good because the pie filling was incredibly sweet and juicy so it was a good counterpoint. Lee wanted icecream with it, but it didn’t really need it. Too much sweet!
We have leftover pie. Enough for me to have a piece at lunchtime and for Lee and I to share after dinner tonight. Mmmm. Pie.
Next time I make it I’ll put in a little less sugar but add raisins.
PoF: stars
CO: baking
Johnny Yuma was a rebel
It’s nearly Christmas and this makes me very happy.
This morning I went for a run, I also ran on Sunday so I am trying once again to restart this as a regular thing. It has nothing whatsoever to do with being in optimum eating condition for Christmas day. Nothing at all.
My Chirstmas shopping is all done (I hope!) and now all that’s left is to bake. I made two batches of cookies on Sunday: they went to the Jenni’s Angels who helped to finish filming on Sunday and to my workmates. I will bake some more tonight, make up another lebkuchen dough. I don’t think I’ll make evil Russian fudge this year. I just can’t quite justify the health issues associated with feeding my nearest and dearest congealed butter flavoured with sugar.
Cookies are fine though. Cookies are healthy.
I am hand quilting the wedding quilt and after a few evenings in (Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and last night.) I may be nearly half way there. I am going as fast as I can and it turns out that’s pretty fast. I am pleased with myself.
I am onto The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder and enjoying it very much.
PoF: purple and black striped OTKs that Frank bought me in the UK
CO: Christmas
dancing in the street
I promised myself I would run this morning, unless it was raining. Well, it wasn’t raining so I went for a run. The huge gales of wind made it a lot harder than it should have been, and I should also have taken some water with me, as my throat dried out very fast.
I went a different route today! Ok, so usually, I start at my building (duh) and run up Hobson St to the blind gardens, run around on the grass there and then head back the same way.
Today was a huge departure because I ran from my building and then took a left up past Wellington Girls! I ran up that street past the supermarket and Thorndon pool and inhaled an awful lot of commuter C02. At the American embassy I turned right and took my ordinary route home. The new route was a lot harder, because the road is ever so slightly inclined and apparently running uphill even that small amount is really, really hard. It made the home stretch rather nice though, because it’s flat.
Now, I’m really keen to run again on the weekend and have it be heaps easier and fun. Fingers crossed anyway.
Other news? Snickerdoodles cooked on the bottom of the oven melt into one enormous Mega-Doodle. Still tasted good. I have a lot of dishes to do when I get home, but I’m feeling pretty good for the excercise so if I don’t fall asleep in my lunch hour it should be fine. I may have fish’n'chips for lunch again…because I am that evil.
PoF: inklined and skirt
CO: running? Really?
