Nellie Cakes

    22 Nov 2010

    Brownies!

    They’re not pretty because I didn’t realize I ran out of meringue powder until after I already baked them. They were going to have peppermint royal icing on top, all swirled with green and red but honestly, these didn’t need anything extra. They’re decadent. They’re super chocolaty, and they’re the first brownies I ever made, unless you count the ones that come out of a box. Even Eric said he was impressed, and since he’s used to eating all the yummy things I make, that says a lot. He’s used to some pretty good stuff. (If I do say so myself!)

    I did decorate the top a little, if only to break up the brown monotony. It’s just powdered sugar dusted on top with spray food coloring. I think it gives it a poinsettia feel to it, but I might be grasping at straws on that one. See?

    Oh! And one more thing! The brownies are way better the next day. I don’t know why, but I think it has to do with the chocolate soaking into everything (or the fact that I watched Bones the day I made these…  The Babe in the Chocolate kind of grossed me out.)

    I baked these around 8pm and after they cooled, I tried one and I wasn’t impressed so I covered them and left them there until morning. When I woke up and ate one for breakfast, they were to die for! Go forth and make awesome brownies!

    Ultimate Brownies

    Ingredients:

    • 2 sticks of butter, room temperature (plus more for greasing if you don’t want to use the cake release- I recommend it though)
    • 1 2/3 cups all purpose flour
    • 8 ounces unsweetened chocolate
    • 8 ounces semi-sweet chocolate
    • 5 large eggs
    • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
    • 3 1/4 cups sugar (That’s a lot of sugar!)
    • 1/4 teaspoon salt

    Heat the oven to 425 degrees and line a 9x13 inch pan with parchment. It’s easier to line the pan if you coat the pan in the cake release first and stick it to the pan. Then spread some more cake release on the parchment you’re going to pour the brownies in. (Doing this will make it super easy to pull the brownies out of the pan later, instead of destroying a few trying to dig them out with a knife.)

    Chop the unsweetened chocolate and the semi-sweet chocolate, which I will freely admit, is a pain in the butt:

    My hand hurt after chopping both bars. I prefer Baker’s chocolate. It’s pretty inexpensive and it’s SO good. Both bars cost me a total of five bucks.

    Put the butter and the unsweetened chocolate in a double boiler, or rig something up like this:

    That’s a pyrex bowl on top of a pot with simmering water. And I swear there’s butter under all that chocolate!

    Melt all that together, mixing it from time to time until it’s nice and smooth, with no lumps. Make sure you don’t accidentally melt the semi-sweet chocolate instead!

    Once it’s melted, take it off the heat and set it aside. In another bowl, pour in the massive amount of sugar, the eggs and the vanilla and beat it with an electric mixer for about 10 minutes, or until it’s light yellow, fluffy and creamy looking.

    After the egg mixture is full of bubbles, slowly pour in the melted chocolate mixture, stopping to mix it (with the electric mixer) every so often before you add more. You’ll probably have to scrape down the sides of the bowl while you’re at it too.

    Now add the flour and salt -very slowly-. If you add the flour too fast, it will clump up and you’ll have chunks of flour in the brownies, which doesn’t sound very appetizing. When I made them, I only poured enough flour in at one time to dust the top of the chocolate-egg-sugar mixture before I mixed it in. Just keep doing that and you won’t have to worry about it clumping up. It’s going to get really thick, so if the motor on your electric mixer has a hard time with thick stuff, I’d mix it by hand. Use the electric one if you can get away with it though.

    When you’re done mixing in the flour, add the semi-sweet chopped chocolate and mix it in by hand. It’s going to look delicious, but try not to eat it because I’d hate to hear that someone got sick from all the raw eggs in there. How yummy does this look?!

    The batter in the picture isn’t totally mixed, of course. You shouldn’t have chocolate not covered in batter.

    Pour all that gooey goodness in the parchement lined pan and spread it as evenly as you can. It won’t level out like cake does which I didn’t realize this until I pulled it out of the oven and it still looked like I had just poured it.

    That’s what it looked like when I took it out of the oven!

    Bake it for 25 to 30 minutes. It’s hard to tell when it’s done just by looking at it, but if you stick a toothpick in there, you’ll be able to tell how firm it is. If it’s still liquidy, it’s not done.

    Let it cool on a wire rack. It takes a really long time to cool, so don’t get too excited when you pull it out. You still won’t be able to eat it for an hour or so. (After it cools, you can frost it if you want too. I’ll post the royal icing recipe after this one, probably later today.)

    Cut it into bars once it’s cool and then lift one side of the parchment until you can get your fingers around the first bar. (Or you can pull the whole thing out and stack them on a plate, all pretty like.) They are way better the next day so feel free to cut them up and then cover them with plastic wrap for the morning. Who said brownies aren’t a breakfast food?!

    These would be awesome for any holiday parties you plan on going to! They’re a nice change from all the pie everyone’s going to be eating and this recipe makes a pretty large amount so everyone should get one. (Check out my newest additions to the Nellie Cakes store too! They’re the perfect addition to any dessert you bring to the party!)

    And since I slacked on the give-away I promised, I’ll be sending the first twenty people who email me one of these or 2 cupcake toppers of your choice. Drop me a line (here) with your address and which item you’d like and I’ll get them out as soon as I can. They probably won’t get to you in time for Thanksgiving, but you’ll have them for the next big holiday!

    19 Oct 2010

    Before I get to the cupcakes, I wanted to let you know about those cool balloon cupcake toppers I put on them. Nellie Cakes now has a store and those are on sale! I also have a few more styles, so go check ‘em out! I have a few more things coming soon, so keep checking back. I putting a link to the store on my side bar just in case you want to come back to it later. (This is just an experiment. I hope people like my stuff… We’ll see I guess!) Here’s the recipe from the last post, as promised! Pumpkin Brown-Butter Cupcakes Ingredients: 1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter 1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour 2 teaspoons baking powder 1 teaspoon salt 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon 1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg (I used the regular, ground kind) 1/8 teaspoon cloves 1 cup canned pumpkin puree 1 cup packed light brown sugar 1/2 cup granulated sugar 2 large eggs Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Line cupcake tins with cupcake liners (this recipe makes about 16). In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium-low heat. Continue to cook, swirling occasionally, until butter turns golden brown. Skim the foam off the top and remove from heat. Pour the butter into a bowl to stop the cooking, leaving the burned bits behind. Allow it to cool to room temperature. While you wait for the butter to cool, whisk together the flour, spices, baking powder and salt. In another bowl, whisk together both sugars, the pumpkin puree, the eggs, and the cooled brown-butter mixture. Add the flour mixture and whisk until combines. (The whisking broke my whisk, but it was over-due.) Divide the batter evenly among the cups, scooping 1/4 cup of batter into each. Bake, rotating the tins half way through the 20 minute baking time. Once they’re done baking (and a toothpick comes out clean) transfer them to wire racks to cool. Allow them to cool completely before removing them from the tins. These cupcakes are amazing. I think they’re my new favorite actually. They have an awesome pumpkin flavor and the tops have a great texture; kind of crunchy, but only on the top eighth of an inch. Paired with vanilla Swiss Meringue Buttercream, it’s like having a cupcake version of pumpkin pie! Martha Stewart knows her cupcakes.

    Before I get to the cupcakes, I wanted to let you know about those cool balloon cupcake toppers I put on them. Nellie Cakes now has a store and those are on sale! I also have a few more styles, so go check ‘em out! I have a few more things coming soon, so keep checking back. I putting a link to the store on my side bar just in case you want to come back to it later. (This is just an experiment. I hope people like my stuff… We’ll see I guess!)

    Here’s the recipe from the last post, as promised!

    Pumpkin Brown-Butter Cupcakes

    Ingredients:

    • 1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter
    • 1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
    • 2 teaspoons baking powder
    • 1 teaspoon salt
    • 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
    • 1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg (I used the regular, ground kind)
    • 1/8 teaspoon cloves
    • 1 cup canned pumpkin puree
    • 1 cup packed light brown sugar
    • 1/2 cup granulated sugar
    • 2 large eggs

    Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Line cupcake tins with cupcake liners (this recipe makes about 16).

    In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium-low heat. Continue to cook, swirling occasionally, until butter turns golden brown. Skim the foam off the top and remove from heat. Pour the butter into a bowl to stop the cooking, leaving the burned bits behind. Allow it to cool to room temperature.

    While you wait for the butter to cool, whisk together the flour, spices, baking powder and salt. In another bowl, whisk together both sugars, the pumpkin puree, the eggs, and the cooled brown-butter mixture. Add the flour mixture and whisk until combines. (The whisking broke my whisk, but it was over-due.)

    Divide the batter evenly among the cups, scooping 1/4 cup of batter into each.

    Bake, rotating the tins half way through the 20 minute baking time.

    Once they’re done baking (and a toothpick comes out clean) transfer them to wire racks to cool. Allow them to cool completely before removing them from the tins.

    These cupcakes are amazing. I think they’re my new favorite actually. They have an awesome pumpkin flavor and the tops have a great texture; kind of crunchy, but only on the top eighth of an inch. Paired with vanilla Swiss Meringue Buttercream, it’s like having a cupcake version of pumpkin pie! Martha Stewart knows her cupcakes.