celebration brownies

good evening bakers,

how are your january's going? it's one of those weird months that seems to be flying by and dragging at the same time - last week in particular seemed to go on forever but then how is it already a weekend?! one thing i have been particularly proud of this month is my commitment to my new healthy living food/exercise routine which i started at the end of last year; but, have no fear, the baked goods are here to stay! so here is an indulgent chocolate number for you...

this arose as we emerged from the post christmas and new year haze to find a large supply of chocolate selection boxes dotted around our house. as we were making slow progress on consuming them, i decided to take action and mix things up. i remembered reading a recipe in the green & black's chocolate recipes book a while back titled 'celebration brownies'. the premise is extremely simple but also completely ingenious, as is often the way!

to take your brownies to the next level you bake a layer of mini chocolates into them.

so whip up your favourite brownie mixture (i used a simpler version to my normal one, which usually involves a lot of whisking which would probably be undone by adding chocolates).

 i used dark chocolate to counter the sweetness of the celebrations

 

 pure calories - so good! 

 adding the sugar to the chocolate mix

 eggs are whisked and added

somewhat odd looking, but go with it

when your mixture is ready to go, it's on to the fun part - the chocolates!

pour half of the mixture into the baking tray:

then arrange the chocolates on top - do try and be methodical so that each brownie will have a chocolate in it:

 i left certain chocolates out, mainly bounty's because i am not a fan, but also twix's because i wasn't sure i'd want the biscuit part in my brownie

all of the chocolate

then pour the remaining mixture over the top, try to make sure all of the chocolates are submerged, otherwise they will catch in the oven:

then it's in to the oven to bake. i do struggle a bit with brownies and knowing how gooey to go, you want that beautiful texture but not raw cake! my mixture was very wobbly in the middle but the edges cooked very quickly so these slices were more cakey but the middle was SO good. 

 

 

they certainly added a novel dimension to a standard brownie and anything that increases chocolate intake is definitely a good thing!

this weekend i'm planning on whipping up a banana and rolo cake and perhaps something new too. until then, have a good week bakers.

love,

nen

x

christmas concoctions part two: white chocolate and cranberry cakies

so this post may be a little out of season, but we'll roll with it!

life has been a little crazy recently: the post christmas/new year period is always a bit of a blur and then on monday i started my new job. it's going really well so far and the people in the office are really nice and welcoming! but it does mean i have been coming home, having dinner, working out and crashing!! hopefully i'll get back in to the swing of things soon - three weeks off means i am a little rusty!

so this week's post is a hangover from the festive season, but these will taste good all year round - especially now when it's still dark and cold. however, as the title might suggest, these did not go 100% to plan! i'll reveal all as we go along but i have definitely created a new bake!

this was a hummingbird recipe, i think i have made them before (with greater success!). i made them for my christmas party (which went really well).

ingredients ready to go

 the recipe is nice and simple, building up a cookie dough in stages

 

at this point there was a very narrowly avoided disaster! our spices have big letters on the top of the jars and i had (stupidly) reached in and grabbed the first 'C' that i could find.

thankfully i was waiting on my mum to get back from the shop with the flour so i put the 'cinnamon' in a separate bowl ready to mix in, at which point i thought, this looks rather dark! double checking the jar confirmed that i had picked up coriander rather than cinnamon!! i was so close to making, what would probably have been, some of the worst cookies ever!

 a very close call! 

 coriander free dough coming together

 love, love the contrast of the cranberries!

 

pretty hard to resist eating it at this stage!

 so we get to this stage with my cookies all ready to go. the dough felt right, it's normally stiffer and stickier than a cake mix and then it spreads out as it cooks to form the round, flat cookie shape. however, as you can see from the oven picture below, this process did not happen! i'm not entirely sure why this happened, a little googling suggests something to do with the flour or raising agent.

the resulting bake was a new creation (or at least so i am claiming), ladies and gentlemen i present to you: the cakie

 a strange bake the exists somewhere between the realms of cake and cookie - probably most closely related to a rock cake!

of course the important thing (as always) is taste over appearance and these still tasted scrummy - i mean white chocolate and cranberries! obviously the texture was not the gooey, chewy cookie goodness i was hoping for, but it was novel! and they still went down well, so no complaints!

next time i'll give you an option for what to do with the post-christmas selection boxes you probably have lying around!

until then, have a good week!

love,

nen

x