Passion Fruit Caramel Brownies

Dear Perfect Brownie Cutters,

I’ve tried parchment paper, cleaning knives between cuts, and even a special brownie-specific pan.  Result: delicious, messy-looking brownies.  What’s your secret?  Is there a magic trick?  I’m all ears eyes.

In the meantime, I’m not going to stop making brownies because that would be dumb.  They will remain destined for my belly, not glossy magazine pages which is better anyway.  Who eats magazines?

(okay, these aren’t that bad.)

Making bon bons resulted in awesome leftovers: passion fruit caramel and about 6 ounces of El Rey Gran Saman 70%.  The obvious solution?  Ridiculous brownies, of course.  My usual go-to brownie recipe calls for unsweetened chocolate, but rather than just cutting back the sugar a little for my bittersweet, I decided to make Nick Malgieri’s Supernatural Brownies.  The recipe is similar since it uses brown sugar and a small amount of flour resulting in fudgy squares with a deep chocolate flavor.  

Daring Bakers’ Challenge: Candy!

The August 2011 Daring Bakers’ Challenge was hosted by Lisa of Parsley, Sage, Desserts and Line Drive and Mandy of What the Fruitcake?!.  These two sugar mavens challenged us to make sinfully delicious candies!  This was a special challenge for the Daring Bakers because the good folks at http://www.chocoley.com offered an amazing prize for the winner of the most creative and delicious candy!

I love chocolate.  I really do.

But you know what?  I will gladly fork out the cash to buy a box of nice chocolates from a chocolatier rather than attempt to make bon bons again.

Or maybe such an activity is not meant to take place in a kitchen in south Texas in August.  Either way, this challenge was a very frustrating one for me!  

Daring Bakers’ Challenge: Marquise on Meringue!

The May 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Emma of CookCraftGrow and Jenny of Purple House Dirt.  They chose to challenge everyone to make a Chocolate Marquise.  The inspiration for this recipe comes from a dessert they prepared at a restaurant in Seattle.

Are you guys wearing your fancypants??  You’re going to need them for this dessert.  It’s famous, so you don’t want to be under-dressed.  That would be rude. What do your fancypants look like?  If I could design the pair in my mind, they would be purple, sparkly, and with a ruffly butt.  Totally class, right?  For some reason stirrups keep wanting to bombard my vision, but I think I’m going to pass on those.

Right.  So this dessert has kind of a lot of components, each requiring its own set of steps.  It was way overwhelming at first, but after reading over things a few times along with all the questions others were asking/answering in the DB forum, I realized that it wouldn’t be difficult, just time-consuming.  Definitely an exercise in planning, which isn’t really my forte.  But I did it!

I’m guessing the $1,000,000 question right now is: What the #$%^ is a marquise?!  It’s kind of like a chocolate mousse, but a little richer.  After making the base for it, you freeze it which allows you to cut it, coat it in cocoa powder, and place it on the meringue.  When you finally eat it, it’s so dreamy soft….mmmmm.  It’s not overly sweet, especially with the kick from the spices, and you know how I love me some spicy chocolate!

And when there’s also torched meringue, boozy caramel, and spiced nuts, how can it be anything but amazing??  (Answer: it can’t.) 

Hot Chocolate Cupcakes with Whipped Cream and Salted Caramel

Most of the texting between my sister and me involves links to recipes.  I guess we both got really into food this past year, which is definitely not a bad thing.  One of the first things I think she texted me was a photo of the December 2009/January 2010 cover of Fine Cooking magazine.  On it was a massive chocolate layer cake topped with cocoa-dusted homemade marshmallows.

Specifically, this one (photo by Fine Cooking, obviously):

Can you blame her?

A year later (last month), she texted me the link to Savory Sweet Life‘s recipe for Salted Caramel Hot Chocolate.  Uh, YUM.  It became clear to me that I needed to join these two recipes.  Hot chocolate in cake form seems like it would be best in individual sizes (cup…cakes), right?  Silly Fine Cooking. 

Daring Bakers’ Challenge: Crostata!

This is my first month as a Daring Baker!  If you are unfamiliar with this group, a recipe is chosen on the first of each month and everyone posts their results on the 27th.  They usually choose recipes that are out of most people’s comfort zones, which was very appealing to me!  Daring Cooks are also part of the Daring Kitchen, and neither group seems to have a limit if any of you are interested in joining.

The 2010 November Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Simona of briciole. She chose to challenge Daring Bakers to make pasta frolla for a crostata. She used her own experience as a source, as well as information from Pellegrino Artusi’s Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well.

I used version 1 of the pasta frolla recipe, which can be found here.

Flourless Salted Cashew Butter and Caramel Cookies

You know when you have this really great idea in your head that you just have to try?   You’re so convinced that it’s going to work out a certain way and think that it’ll be the most amazing thing ever…right?

Enter these cookies.

I’m so wired to think “peanut butter cookies” that all of the other nut butters have just never stood a chance.   Then a few weeks ago, my brain woke up. Cashew butter…I could just swap it for the peanut butter, right? Brilliant!  Oh, and what do I associate with cashews?   Caramel, of course!   (Ben & Jerry might be responsible.)  Nuts…caramel…SALT!  Eureeeeeka.

Joy the Baker (I know, I just mentioned her in my last post!) posted a recipe for flourless peanut butter cookies that is awesome because it only involves four ingredients.  I made them several months ago, and they were a hit among gluten-free and gluten-full friends and colleagues.   A few even asked for the recipe!  I thought about just subbing cashew butter for the peanut butter, but then was curious about what cashew butter recipes might be lurking around the internets.  One of the first recipes I found was very similar, but used an extra egg and a bit more baking soda.   Sure, why not!