White Chocolate Brownies
I’m back! I finally have time to try new recipes. And with that…
I love chocolate, even white chocolate. I know, I know, white chocolate isn’t really chocolate, blah blah blah. But I don’t care. It’s still sweet and tastes good. Who cares about the technicalities when talking about desserts?
I also love Tartelette’s blog. Everything she makes is beyond gorgeous, and her recipes are always to die for. While these brownies do taste amazingly delicious, sadly, they look absolutely nothing like hers. Fortunately, these are just going to my guinea pigs at the office, and they’re more concerned about taste than aesthetics anyway.
Ingredients
6 tablespoons unsalted butter
8 ounces white chocolate
2 eggs
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 tablespoon vanilla
1 cup flour
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips
Preparation
Preheat oven to 350.
Grease and flour an 8 inch square baking pan, or line with foil.
Melt butter and 4 oz of white chocolate together in top of double boiler over hot water. When melted remove from heat and add the remaining white chocolate. Stir to blend well. Set aside. Beat the eggs and sugar until pale and thick.Add white chocolate and butter mixture, vanilla and flour. Beat just until smooth. Add chocolate chunks and mix in by hand, being careful not to overmix.
Pour into prepared pan and bake 35 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool on wire rack. Cut into squares or bars.
My notes: I thought I had two white chocolate baking bars in my kitchen when in fact, I only had one, so I had to use 4 ounces of white chocolate chips as well.
Recipe from Tartelette.
Happy 4th!
Yes, I’m a dork and made a cupcake flag (minus some stripes) to take to a barbecue later today. Mini red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. The white stripes are just plain frosting; the red have sanding sugar; the blue have blue sprinkles; the stars are made from fondant.
Diet Coke Cupcakes With Vanilla Glaze
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Yes, seriously, Diet Coke. And no, you can’t taste it whatsoever.
I went back to Weight Watchers (about ten pounds from goal!) a few weeks ago and have since heard a zillion people gushing about these cupcakes and decided I had to give them a try. And well, they’re not too bad. Definitely a different texture than cupcakes with the regular ingredients, but nothing to complain about.
If I ever find myself with a major cupcake craving, I might make them again. Of course, they’re not as good as the real thing.
Cake Ingredients
1 box cake mix
1 egg white
1 can Diet Coke
Cake Preparation
Remember, you are substituting the Diet Coke and egg white for the ingredients the box mix calls for–do not add the eggs, oil, etc.
- Preheat oven as directed on box.
- Beat cake mix, egg white, and one can of Diet Coke.
- Fill lined cupcake trays.
- Bake as directed on box. (I set the timer for a couple minutes less and checked on them. They were done.)
- Remove cupcakes from tray and let cool.
- Drizzle glaze over cupcakes, allow glaze to set.
Glaze Ingredients
1 cup powdered sugar
2 tablespoons milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
Glaze Preparation
Mix powdered sugar, milk, and vanilla. If glaze is too thick, add more milk.
Note: If you’re using a white or yellow mix, use Diet 7-Up or another clear diet soda.
Chunky Peanut Butter and Oatmeal Chocolate Chipsters
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I’m sad to report that this is the first Dorie recipe that wasn’t a huge hit. Don’t get me wrong, these cookies are good. They’re just not great. I brought them into the office and they lasted three days which is usually unheard of with my coworkers.
I think part of the reason they weren’t gobbled up is that they’re crispy. People seem to enjoy the chewy, soft cookies more. And, these had a lot going on–peanut butter, oatmeal, and chocolate chips!
Ingredients
3 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg (I omitted this)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup chunky peanut butter
1 cup sugar
1 cup packed light brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
9 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped into chunks, or 1 1/2 cups chocolate chips or chunks
Preparation
Adjust the racks to divide the oven into thirds and preheat to 350°F. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper, Silpat baking mats, or foil. In a large bowl, stir together the oats, flour, spices, baking soda, and salt just to blend.
With an electric mixer (preferably a stand mixer fitted with a paddle), beat the butter, peanut butter, brown sugar, and sugar on medium speed until smooth and creamy. Add the eggs, one at a time, and beat in the vanilla. Reduce the mixer speed to low and add the dry ingredients slowly, beating only until blended. Stir in the chocolate chips. (At this point, the dough can be covered and refrigerated for up to 1 day.)
If the dough is at room temperature, drop rounded tablespoonsful two inches apart onto the prepared baking sheets. If the dough has been refrigerated, scoop it out by rounded teaspoonfuls and roll the balls between your palms. Place them 2″ apart on the sheets. Press the balls gently with the heal of your hand until they are about 1/2″ thick. Bake for 13-15 minutes, until the cookies are golden and just firm around the edges.
Lift the cookies onto wire racks with a wide metal spatula – they will firm as they cool. Repeat until all the dough has been used.
Makes about 60 cookies.
Recipe from Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan.
Sablés
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These cookies are buttery and shortbread-ish. And delicious. Have I mentioned how much I love Dorie recipes? Unfortunately, it appears I am not a talented log roller, as these cookies came out a little angled and squared rather than round. Fortunately the funky shape does not affect their amazing taste!
Ingredients
2 sticks (8 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup confectioners’ sugar, sifted
1/2 teaspoon salt, preferably fine sea salt
2 large egg yolks, at room temperature (plus 1 large egg yolk, for brushing the logs)
2 cups all-purpose flour
Decorating (coarse) sugar
Working with a stand mixer, preferably fitted with a paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the butter at medium speed until smooth and very creamy. Add the sugars and salt and beat until well blended, about 1 minute. The mixture should be smooth and velvety, not fluffy and airy. Reduce the mixer speed to low and beat in two of the egg yolks, again beating until the mixture is homogeneous.
Turn off the mixer. Pour in the flour, drape a kitchen towel over the stand mixer to protect yourself and the counter from flying flour and pulse the mixer at low speed about 5 times, a second or two each time. Take a peek — if there is still a lot of flour on the surface of the dough, pulse a couple more times; if not, remove the towel. Continuing at low speed, mix for about 30 seconds more, just until the flour disappears into the dough and the dough looks uniformly moist. (If most of the flour is incorporated but you’ve still got some in the bottom of the bowl, use a rubber spatula to work the rest of the flour into the dough.) The dough will not clean the sides of the bowl, nor will it come together in a ball — and it shouldn’t. You want to work the dough as little as possible. What you’re aiming for is a soft, moist, clumpy (rather than smooth) dough. Pinch it, and it will feel a little like Play-Doh.
Scrape the dough out onto a smooth work surface, gather it into a ball and divide it in half. Shape each piece into a smooth log about 9 inches long: it’s easiest to work on a piece of plastic wrap and use the plastic to help form the log. Wrap the logs well and refrigerate them for at least 3 hours, preferably longer. (The dough can be kept in the refrigerator for up to 3 days or frozen for up to 2 months.)
Getting Ready to Bake
Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with parchment or silicone mats.
Remove a log of dough from the refrigerator, unwrap it and place it on a piece of parchment or wax paper. Whisk the remaining egg yolk until it is smooth, and brush some of the yolk all over the sides of the dough — this is the glue — then sprinkle the entire surface of the log with decorating sugar.
Trim the ends of the roll if they’re ragged, and slice the log into 1/3-inch-thick cookies. (You can make these as thick as 1/2 inch or as thin as — but no thinner than — 1/4 inch.) Place the rounds on the baking sheets, leaving an inch of space between them.
Bake one sheet at a time for 17 to 20 minutes, rotating the baking sheet at the midway point. When properly baked, the cookies will be light brown on the bottom, lightly golden around the edges and pale on top; they may feel tender when you touch the top gently, and that’s fine. Remove from the oven and let the cookies rest a minute or two before carefully lifting them onto a rack with a wide metal spatula to cool to room temperature.
Repeat with the remaining log of dough, making sure the baking sheets are cool before you bake the second batch.
Makes about 50 cookies.
Serving
Serve these with anything from lemonade to espresso.
Storing
The cookies will keep in a tin at room temperature for about 5 days. If you do not sprinkle the sables with sugar, they can be wrapped airtight and frozen for up to 2 months. Because the sugar will melt in the freezer, the decorated cookies are not suitable for freezing.
My Notes
- I used Turbinado (Sugar in the Raw) sugar.
- I put the first batch in for 17 minutes as the recipe says and the cookies came out really dark. The rest of them I baked for about 14 minutes.
Recipe from Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan.
