Chocolate Graham Cracker Brownies

I think if I had a rewind button for life, I might've used it tonight when I decided to make these brownies...ok well maybe not now that they're done, but a few minutes ago I definitely would've pushed rewind.

I had some leftover chocolate graham crackers that I wanted to use up, hence the recipe I found on http://priscillabakes.blogspot.com Her brownies look absolutely beautiful, and tonight I knew that I wasn't in the mood to even try and make them pretty. Perhaps it's b/c I just finished reading some really boring stuff for school, who knows. 

So these brownies have no flour or butter in them...but for all of you who think you'll be saving on calories, just wait. The chocolate ganache isn't necessarily healthy...and it hates me. I've never made it before until tonight, and it turned out fine--that is until I dropped the not-yet-set ganache brownies on the floor. Thankfully only the top layer of ganache messed up and the brownies were fine. Oh yes, it went everywhere. I thought about taking a picture like I've seen people do with baking messes, but this was too depressing to capture.

The Bachelor Final Rose Part 2 comes on tonight (YAY Molly!) so I was too impatient to let the ganache set up, which of course it wouldn't do anyway b/c it really does hate me. Please ignore how horrible these pictures are, but I promise you these brownies really are great. They don't have the usual texture of brownies; it's slightly crunchy and thicker than a fudge brownie. The graham crackers crumbs really act like a great thickening agent. 

Final point: make these. The ganache was a bit rich for me, and since we're not on good terms I would say that it's not absolutely necessary to make. You could just melt some chocolate chips over this and call it a day. But for now I'm still in emotional turmoil over The Bachelor and have to see who the next Bachelorette is going to be! So sorry for the gross pictures, but just keep in mind that I'd spent 15 min. cleaning up ganache off the floor...and my pants, so I'm probably a little fussy. 

P.S. On a side note, I started taking a cake decorating class so soon you'll be seeing a plethera of hopefully pretty cakes. Just don't judge my decorating/baking skills from the aesthetics of these brownies. :)

This is about how thick the batter should look after the 3 min.

They have potential to look much better, but The Bachelor is more important for me to sit and wait around for the dumb ganache to harden. Whatever they still taste good.

Ingredients:

16 chocolate graham crackers

2 tbsp. unsweetened cocoa powder

1/4 tsp. salt

2 large eggs

1/3 cup sugar

1/3 cup light brown sugar

 1 tbsp. instant coffee granules

2 tsp. vanilla extract

3/4 cup chocolate chips or chunks

Directions:

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Lightly grease an 8 x 8 inch pan. Crush the graham crackers finely. Pour into a bowl and add cocoa and salt. Mix well and set aside. In a large bowl, combine eggs and sugars; beat with an electric mixer at a high speed until thickened, about 3 min. Stir in the coffee granules and vanilla. Fold in chips/chunks and the graham crumb mixture. Pour batter into prepared pan and spread evenly. Bake for 20-25 min. Make sure not to overbake. Let cool completely in the pan and frost with ganache. 

Ganache:

1 cup heavy whipping cream

2 cups chocolate chips

Microwave cream until bubbly and hot. Fold in chips and stir until thickened and smooth. Spread over brownies. Let harden and cut into squares. 

**My family LOVED the texture of these brownies by the way! Chocolate graham crackers in a brownies=awesome!

Marbled Nutella and Peanut Butter Brownies

So it's a cold and rainy day here in Memphis...and what better way to beat the blues than to bake! Though really, it's not like I ever need an excuse to bake something. I realized that what makes baking so fun is that I always get excited to bake something; there's never a moment when I dread going into the kitchen and making something tasty. 

With these three ingredients, how can you go wrong really? 

This is the syrup I used in place of the hazelnut extract that I wasn't able to find anywhere.

With that being said, I found this recipe on cookiemadness.net, thus I'm of course giving all credit to Anna who is a baking genius. I, however, did tamper with the recipe just a bit. Instead of using a dark chocolate bar with hazelnuts in it, I bought a package of hazelnuts and toasted them. Then I added 1/2 cup of semisweet chocolate chips to the Nutella swirl mixture. 

I know that Nutella has a hint of hazelnut flavoring, but I wanted to make it more prominent with the addition of the actual hazelnuts themselves. Plus I thought that the batter might need some hazelnut flavoring as well. I searched two grocery stores for a hazelnut extract and came up empty-handed. On the way home as I was trying to think of an alternative, it hit me that I have some sugarfree hazelnut coffee flavoring syrup. I was weary of how good it might taste in a dessert, but on the bottle it said that it can be used in baking. So I added a tsp. to the peanut butter brownie mixture and it gave it a nice, subtle hint of hazelnut. Yum.

Ingredients

Peanut Butter Brownies

6 tbsp. unsalted butter, softened

1 1/4 cup packed brown sugar

1 tsp. vanilla extract

2 eggs

1 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp. salt

3/4 cup all-purpose flour

1 tsp. hazelnut syrup (regular or sugarfree)

Swirl Mixture

1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips

1/2 tsp. butter

1/4 cup Nutella

1/2 cup hazelnuts, toasted (toast in a oven at 350 degrees for about 10 min. or until fragrant)

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line an 8x11 inch pan with aluminum foil.

In a mixing bowl, beat butter and brown sugar until slightly crumbly, but able to be smoothed when stirred with a spatula. Beat in vanilla and peanut butter. Add eggs one at a time just until mixed--don't overmix. Add baking powder and salt until well blended. Add flour until it is just incorporated and spread peanut butter mixture into prepared pan.

To make the swirl mixture, place chocolate chips, Nutella, and butter in a microwave-safe bowl and heat until smooth (about 1 1/2 min.). Add in hazelnuts. 

Drop spoonfuls of Nutella mixture of peanut butter brownie batter and drag a knife through to make a marbled pattern. Bake on center rack for 30 min. or until brownies begin to pull away from the side of the pan and center seems set. Cool pan on a wire rack. When brownies hit room temperature, chill them for an hour or so. Lift from pan and cut into squares. 

Peppermint Brownie Cups

I stumbled upon this recipe on a website at http://bakingblonde.wordpress.com I so happen to have looked in my pantry earlier on today and saw these Andes Peppermint Crunch Baking chips that we've had since Christmas and was wanting to use them up. I tweaked the recipe slightly to make it my own, but also a little more user-friendly. They actually turn out to be a 

nightmare if you use the mini muffin tins like I did...so don't. They stick.

Ingredients:

6 tbsp. butter

3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1/4 tsp. peppermint extract

3/4 cup all-purpose flour

1/4 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp. salt

1/2 cup milk chocolate chips

2 cups Andes Peppermint Crunch Baking Chips

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line muffin tin with liners.

In heat-proof bowl, melt together butter and chocolate in the microwave for 30 second intervals, stirring after each interval until smooth. DON'T overcook b/c it will make the chocolate thicken up. Allow to cool for 5 min.

In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl; set aside.

Whisk or beat the sugar into the chocolate mixture. Add eggs and peppermint extract, mixing until combined and smooth. Add to flour mixture and mix until combined. Gently fold in the 1/2 cup chocolate chips and 1 1/2 cups peppermint chips (the other 1/2 cup is used to sprinkle on top).

Carefully pour batter to prepared each muffin liner until about 2/3 full. Sprinkle a few peppermint chips over top of each individual brownie. Bake for 18-23 for both sized muffins.

Orange-Kissed Brownies

So the website for this recipe was messing up and not loading everything on the page, hence the reason there is a picture without a recipe. If you would like the recipe feel free to e-mail me and I'll do what I can to get it or fix the website error. I'll warn you and say these brownies have a LOT of butter in them...like 3 and 1/2 sticks worth...I know. It didn't group all the ingredients in one amount; it would say how much butter was needed in the brownies, then down the ingredients list it would say how much it required for the frosting. Though the brownies do have a lot of butter, which you could omit at your discretion but I'm not sure how it will affect the baking, they are rich so you don't eat a huge brownie anyways. These received wonderful reviews!