Mr. Big Brownies

My hubby was just in Winnipeg visiting his lovely Grandparents. They're the sweetest people and like his mom, they just love to give you little "gifties". Little gifts that don't really cost much and don't seem like much, but they're a little something to brighten your day, often for trivial occasions, or no occasion at all. This time Scott's Grandpa gave him a box of Mr. Big Snack Cakes that he had picked up last time he went to town. I laughed so hard when he brought them back home and thought, oh geez, what are we going to do with these? Well, inspiration struck! Might as well put them in a brownie. So that's what I did.

For this recipe, I adapted one of Anna Olson's recipes from her newest cookbook Back to Baking. Which is a pretty spectacular book (if you haven't already heard my praises for this cookbook, check out my post about me attending a cooking class hosted by Anna that demonstrated recipes from her book here)!!

Mr. Big Brownies
Recipe adapted from Anna Olson's Back to Baking

Ingredients

Brownies:

• 1/2 cup butter
• 4 oz semisweet chocolate chips
• 3 oz unsweetened chocolate, chopped
• 1 tbsp instant coffee granules
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla extract 
• 2/3 cups all purpose flour
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 4 Mr. Big Snack Cakes

Frosting:

• 3 oz milk chocolate chips
• 2 tbsp butter
• 1 tsp instant coffee granules
• 1/2 package cream cheese, softened
• 1 cup icing sugar

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Line an 8 inch square pan with parchment paper so it hangs over the edges slightly.
2. Melt the butter, chocolates, and instant coffee in a medium saucepan over low heat, stirring constantly until melted. Remove the pot from the heat.
3. Stir in the sugars, then add the eggs one at a time, stirring well after each addition. Stir in the vanilla.
4. Stir the flour, baking soda, and salt into the chocolate mixture, mixing just until blended.
5. Pour half the batter into the pan (just until the bottom of the pan is covered). Top with the Mr. Big Snack Cakes. Pour remaining batter to cover the snack cakes. Smooth top.
6. Bake in preheated oven for about 35 minutes, until the top of the brownies take on a dull finish. Cool completely in the pan before frosting.
7. To make the frosting, melt the chocolate, butter, and instant coffee in the microwave, being careful not to burn the chocolate. Beat the cream cheese to soften in the bowl of a stand mixer. Pour in the melted chocolate mixture and beat until blended. Add icing sugar and blend. Remove the brownies from the pan and ice the top of the entire brownie. Let set for an hour before slicing.

These are some seriously delicious brownies! You've got to try them. :) Would probably work well with Wagon Wheels too!! Yah, I'm a little weird, but it works. :D Hope you've got lots to look forward to this weekend. I know I do! Its my Birthday and Mothers' Day on Sunday. So its going to be a good weekend. Wish I lived closer to my Momma though.

Happy Baking my Friends! Enjoy the weekend.

Coconut Topped Buttermilk Brownies with Chocolate Buttermilk Frosting

Stop right there!! Don't scroll down to the recipe yet... pause and have a look and these beautifully lit photos my darling hubby captured for me. He got up early to get great lighting for me while I was heading off to work. What a sweetie?! He totally deserves mad props in my opinion!!

These little beauties are coconut topped buttermilk brownies finished with a chocolate buttermilk frosting. Yah, I may have had some buttermilk leftover from another recipe I was trying to use up, but it turned out to be a great success. These were eagerly devoured by my co-workers and my hubby's co-workers (did I mention the recipe made wayyyy more than I thought?!). These even started a little rivalry between husbands at my hubby's workplace.. turns out another wife had sent in baking that day too... cookies. It ended with one of his co-workers (who shall remain nameless), telling my hubby that my cupcakes were way better than so-and-so's wife's cookies... whoops!! Maybe we should plan which days we are allowed to send in baking so we don't step on any toes?!

Don't even think about how much work these may be... just go out, get the ingredients and get to it!! They are soooo worth the effort. :)

Coconut Topped Buttermilk Brownies with Chocolate Buttermilk Frosting
Brownie recipe adapted from Bake Space
Coconut topping from In Katrina's Kitchen
Frosting Recipe by me

Ingredients:
Brownies:

• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 cup butter
• 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 cup water
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup buttermilk
• 1 tbsp vanilla

Coconut Topping:

• 4 1/2 cups shredded coconut
• 1 small can sweetened condensed milk
• 1 1/4 cups icing sugar

Frosting:

• Find the frosting recipe here. Substitute 1/3 cup of the icing sugar for 1/3 cup of cocoa powder for a chocolate version of the same frosting.

Method:

1. To make the brownies: Preheat the oven to 350F. Line 3 - 12 cup muffin tins with paper liners. Set aside. In a large bowl, combine the flour, granulated sugar and baking soda.
2. In a medium saucepan, combine brown sugar, butter, cocoa powder and water. Bring mixture just to boiling, stirring constantly. Remove from heat. Add the chocolate mixture to the flour mixture and mix until all of the flour is incorporated. Add the eggs, buttermilk and vanilla. Whisk until mixture is smooth and silky (it will be quite thin). Fill prepared muffin tins 1/3 - 1/2 way full. Bake in preheated oven for 10-14 minutes (or until tops spring back lightly when touched). Do not overbake or they will be dry. Err on the side of slightly underbaked as they will continue to cook after they are removed from the oven.
3. Cool on a wire rack.
4. While brownies are cooling, prepare coconut topping by combining all three ingredients and stirring until evenly distributed. Mixture should be quite stiff. Once cupcakes are cooled, form 1-2 tbsp portions of the coconut mixture into disks and fit them on top of the cupcakes, pressing down gently to adhere them to the cakes. Repeat until all cupcakes have been fitted with a coconut disk.
5. Prepare the frosting and frost cupcakes however you like. 

This post has been linked up with the Recipe Party over at the Sweet Spot. Head on over to check out what other goodies fellow bloggers have whipped up this week.

Yep, these are pretty incredible!! :) :) Hope you'll take the time to try them out. Happy Baking my Friends!

Ginger Lemon Girls' Brownies with a Twist!

This is my very first time participating in the Secret Recipe Club! For those of you who haven't heard of the Secret Recipe Club, its a group hosted by Amanda of the blog Amanda's Cookin. Each month, bloggers from all over are given a blog from which they have to select a recipe to make. The key? Your assigned blog is to be kept a secret until the posting date! How cool is that?!

This month I was assigned to the blog Ginger Lemon Girl hosted by Carrie. Carrie has a blog full of delicious gluten free recipes! I'm not a gluten free baker, so the world of gluten free ingredients is definitely a new one for me. Thanks Carrie for giving me the chance to experiment with gluten free recipes. I chose to make Carrie's brownies, with a twist of my own.

I made brownies filled with and drizzled with salted caramel sauce.

Double Chocolate Brownies

Recipe adapted from GingerLemonGirl

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups almond flour

1 cup macadamia flour (make your own - grind macadamia nuts in your food processor until smooth)

1/4 cup cocoa

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

1/3 cup sugar (white or brown)

1/4 cup grapeseed oil

2 eggs

1/2 cup + 2tbsp applesauce

1 tbsp vanilla

half recipe of salted caramel sauce (below)

1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 350F. Spray a 9x13 inch pan with non-stick cooking spray. Whisk all dry ingredients (except chocolate chips) together in a large bowl. In another bowl whisk together all the wet ingredients (except the caramel sauce) and stir into the dry ingredients. Transfer half of the batter to the baking dish and spread into an even layer. Bake in preheated oven for 20 minutes. Remove from oven and cool on rack for 20 minutes.


2. While the brownie cools, make the caramel sauce. Spread salted caramel sauce onto baked brownie layer. Dallop remaining batter over the caramel layer and carefully spread into a nice even layer. Sprinkle with the semi-sweet chocolate chips. Return to preheated oven and bake for 20 minutes until cooked through.


3. Let brownies cool and serve drizzled with additional caramel sauce.

Salted Caramel Sauce

Recipe from Tracey's Culinary Adventures

Ingredients:

• 1 cup sugar



• 1/2 cup heavy cream



• 1 tbsp cold unsalted butter



• 1/2 tsp sea salt

Method:

1. Add 1/2 cup water to a small saucepan. Gently add the sugar to the center of the pan; it will mound in the center. Cover the pot and bring to a boil over high heat. Once boiling, uncover and insert a candy thermometer. Continue cooking until the mixture reaches 300F and is just starting to develop some colour, about 15 minutes.


2. Reduce the heat to medium and continue boiling until syrup is amber in colour and reaches 350F, about another 5 minutes. Meanwhile, bring the cream to a simmer in a small saucepan.


3. Remove the caramel from the heat and add about 1/4 of the cream. It will bubble furiously, so be careful. Continue stirring until bubbling subsides. Add remaining cream. When it stops bubbling, whisk to incorporate and stir in the salt and butter.

I really enjoyed my very first Secret Recipe Club and am so excited to have been paired up with such a great (and healthy) blogger like Carrie. Do stop by and check out her blog - it will be worth the look! Thanks Amanda for hosting a great blogger event and to Carrie for introducing me to gluten free baking.
If you want to check out some of the other bloggers that participated, check out the blog hop below:

Coconut Chocolate Chip Brownies

First things first - I got a new haircut and have to show it off - new haircut to start my new job! Here is a photo - its definitely different and I lost about eight inches of hair. :D (I AM aware that this is not remotely food or wine related, but I'm excited ok?!)

Alright, now that my face has been plastered all over my blog... lets get on to what you came here for - awesome food! I have a confession to make - I've made some really bad batches of brownies this summer. I'm choosing to blame it on the recipes I've tried, but you never know... maybe I just have a brownie handicap. That is what I was beginning to think - "I've lost my baking touch"... it was a really panicky feeling. But then I went back to the basics - I busted out my "Clueless in the Kitchen - a cookbook for Teens" cookbook. I'm a little embarassed about that... but guess what? It worked! I took the brownie recipe, adapted it and voila - amazingly perfect brownies. So without further delay, here is the recipe for my coconut, chocolate chip (or whatever you have in your pantry) brownies.

Coconut Chocolate Chip Brownies

Adapted from Clueless in the Kitchen, page 153

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 2/3 cup oil
• 1/2 cup boiling water
• 2 cups sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/3 cup flour
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 tsp coconut extract
• 3/4 cup chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup coconut

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Grease a 9x13 inch baking pan.
2. In a large bowl, stir together the cocoa and baking soda. Blend in 1/3 cup of the oil and mix until smooth. Pour in the boiling water, stirring until mixture thickens (for complex scientific reasons, it will thicken). Now stir in the rest of the oil, the sugar, and the eggs. Mix until smooth.
3. Add the flour, the vanilla and the coconut extract. Blend completely - there should be no lumps. Now mix in the chocolate chips and the coconut, and pour into the greased baking pan. Spread the batter evenly to avoid crispy edges.
4. Bake in preheated oven for 35 to 40 minutes, until just set in the middle. Don't overcook brownies - they're always better slightly moist.
5. Let cool and cut into squares. Dust with icing sugar to make them look pretty (if you can wait that long before you devour them). Enjoy!

This recipe was a big hit - my husband didn't want me to share them with anyone (I usually give away about 1/2 of my baking so we don't end up eating all of it), kind of like my cinnamon buns - hubby hides them on everyone else in the house so he can enjoy them all to himself. :) I guess I should take it as a compliment.

Any way, I hope you enjoy this recipe and have an opportunity to give it a try - its easy and delicious. Happy Baking my Friends!