Decadent Peanut Butter Cup Brownies

Today's my birthday. I won't tell you how old I am, that will just depress me. Instead, I'll pretend I'm still 25 and we'll all be happier.

Last week was my vacation, I took a week off from work to spend time with my brother and his family who were visiting from Illinois. We celebrated my birthday on Friday. Since it was my birthday, my father and my niece picked out a great cake from an Amish bakery. I was just happy I wasn't expected to bake my own birthday cake.

Knowing my love of Trader Joe's, my sister-in-law brought me a bag full of baking supplies from TJ's. They also got me the Star Wars Cupcake Stencils from Williams Sonoma, but that's for another post.

One of the items they brought were the wonderful Trader Joe's mini Peanut Butter Cups that I used in a previous post Trader Joe's and Peanut Butter Cup Brownies.



Unfortunately, chocolate peanut butter cups can't handle car rides half way across the country in July heat.



But we weren't going to give up on them. We tossed around ideas like chopping them up and using it as an ice cream topping. But, being me, I wanted to find a use for them in baking.

A couple weeks ago, I came up with Gooey Rolo Brownies and they ended up being very delicious and quite popular. So I decided to tweak the recipe a bit and create these Decadent Peanut Butter Cup brownies.

I used the same base brownie recipe from Hersheykitchen.com: Sensational Peppermint Pattie Brownies.

Instead of the Peppermint Patties, I used regular sized Reese's Peanut Butter Cups to layer in the middle of the brownies.



I wanted to use the regular PB cups because they're thinner and wider than the minis and I wanted to use them to cover more ground. It took 24 PB cups to create the middle layer.



I spread the rest of the batter on top of the peanut butter cups and baked the brownies for about 50 minutes.



While the brownies were baking, I took a fork to the melted mini peanut butter cups and broke them up into chunks.



I took the brownies out of the oven and sprinkled the mini PB cups all over the top and put them back into the oven for about 4 minutes.



The candy was melty and soft when I took them out.



I used an offset spatula to spread the melted PB cups all over the top.



These brownies were moist and had just the right amount of peanut butter to chocolate ratio.



I discovered that both the Gooey Rolo Brownies and the Decadent Peanut Butter Cup Brownies are even better the next day.

Gooey Rolo Brownies

I seem to be on a bit of a chocolate caramel kick at the moment. While working on the Chocolate Caramel Cookie Cups, I came up with the idea to do Rolo brownies.

Years ago, I made brownies with peppermint patties in the middle. I knew that was the recipe I wanted to tweak, so I did a little online searching and found Hershey's Sensational Peppermint Pattie Brownies. The brownies in this recipe are rich and dense, perfect for supporting the candy in the middle.

I gathered the ingredients, the only changes I made were replacing the peppermint patties with Rolos and using some homemade caramel sauce as a drizzle on top.



The brownies whipped up quickly. I poured half the batter into the 9x13x2 inch pan and then layered the Rolos. I lined them up, alternating right side up and upside down to get as many in as I could. I used two 12oz bags of Rolos with about 8 leftover.



I didn't go all the way to the edges with the candy because I wanted the brownies to fill in around the edges and keep the candy on the inside only.



I poured the rest of the batter on top and carefully spread it, trying to not move the Rolos around too much.



I baked them for 50 minutes. The recipe calls for 50-55 minutes, I always bake brownies a little less so they're soft and a bit fudgy.



There was homemade caramel left over from my last baking experiment and I heated it up until it was the right consistency. Then, using a fork, I drizzled the caramel over the brownies.



I thought that I was done, when I saw the last few Rolos left over. I came up with the idea of taking each candy and cutting it in 6 pieces.



While the brownies were still hot, I sprinkled the pieces of Rolo all over the top.



Because the brownies were hot, the candy melted a bit more into little rivers of caramel oozing out of the chocolate.



These amazing brownies came out as gooey, chocolatey, caramely bites of awesomeness!

I am now trying to come up with more recipes using Rolos. They melted beautifully and the possibilities are endless.

Cookie Experiment #3: Chocolate Caramel Cookie Cups

McDonalds has this limited release McFlurry out there right now made with Rolos. I've heard several people go on and on about how good it was and it got me thinking about what I could make with Rolos. My first thought was brownies, but I wanted more of a challenge. Don't get me wrong, I'm still thinking about those brownies...I'm thinking chocolate with a layer of mini Rolos in the middle and caramel on top.

Yeah, those will eventually get made.

Any way, I was driving back to work one night and I had a cookie brainstorm. If they turned out right, they would be more Twix-like than Rolo-like, but I had to make them.

These cookies, the Chocolate Caramel Cookie Cups, are a base of shortbread cookies filled with caramel and topped with whipped, dark chocolate ganache.

Only a handful of ingredients are needed. Sugar, flour, vanilla, butter, heavy whipping cream, and dark chocolate. Seriously, that is all you need to make these cookies.



I love shortbread cookies. They are so easy to make and so delicious.



Cream 2 cups of butter and 1 cup of sugar.



Add 2 teaspoons of vanilla and 4 cups of all-purpose flour. I used a a mini muffin pan and a heaping 1/2 Tablespoon of dough.



I balled up the dough and then used the back of the 1/2 Tablespoon to press the dough into the cup.



I baked the cookies for about 12-15 minutes at 350 degrees until they came out golden brown.



While the cookies were baking, I made the ganache. I've made ganache many times in the past and is super easy to make. I heated up 1 cup of heavy whipping cream to simmering and then poured it over 7 oz of dark chocolate.



After letting it sit for a minute, I mixed the chocolate and cream until it was all melted and combined. I covered it in plastic wrap to prevent a skin from forming and let it come to room temperature before putting it into the fridge. Once it was cool, I put it in the stand mixer and whipped it up.

I also made caramel just as I had when I made Dark Chocolate Caramel Thumbprint Cookies.
I played around with it a bit because I wanted the caramel to be a thicker, so after making it, I put it back in a heavy pan over low heat, stirring it and adding sugar a Tablespoon at a time until it was the thickness I wanted.

When the cookies were done and cooled, the caramel was the correct thickness, and the ganache whipped and put in a piping bag, it was time to assemble.



I poured about a teaspoon of caramel in to the cookie cup and then topped it with a flourish of the ganache.



These cookies turned out delicious and decadent.



I plan on experimenting more. Next time I want to make them thumbprint cookies with a drizzle of milk chocolate over top.

Red, White and Blue Macarons

As I've said before, I work in the news industry, which means I work holidays. Because of this I usually try to make something special to take in on holidays. Last year, I made the Star Wars cookies. This year, since I am currently deep in my macaron obsession, I decided to make Red, White, and Blue macarons for Memorial Day.

I've been working on perfecting macarons for over a year now and there have been many failed attempts. I used books and I used recipes I found online, but it wasn't until I followed the steps in the book "Macarons: Authentic French Cookie Recipes from the Macaron Cafe" by Cecile Cannone, that I finally made macarons.



My first attempt were regular macarons, flavored only by the almond flour, with a whipped, dark chocolate ganache filling. They were fantastic.

I decided to make patriotic macarons for Memorial Day. Red, White and Blue...raspberry and blueberry cookies with vanilla buttercream icing in between.

Now, you'll notice that my macarons don't look exactly like the pictures in the book. I'm still working on perfecting these. They aren't as smoothly rounded as they should be and I think that's because I might whip the eggs a little longer than I'm supposed to. This makes the batter thicker and it doesn't settle like it should. But baking is sometimes a trial and error experiment. I've found that these macarons look better than the last ones I made and the next ones will look better than these. I also think I make the cookies too big. Next time, I'm going to use a smaller piping tip.

Even if they don't seem as smooth as they should, the consistency is just right. A crisp outer shell with a chewy, soft interior.

The first thing I do is trace circles onto the back of the parchment paper. This will act as a guide for piping the batter.



One of the great things about macarons is that they don't require a lot of ingredients.



I measured out the almond flour and powdered sugar. After doing some research online, I learned the best way to flavor the macarons is with crumbled, freeze dried berries.



I eyeballed it and put in what looked like enough raspberries and ran it through the food processor with the almond flour and sugar.



I then poured the room temperature ege whites into the mixer and set to whipping them with salt (I had the eggs out of the fridge for about 12 hours. Room temperature ingredients are very important in macarons).



After adding the superfine sugar, I colored the eggs with red, gel food coloring. Apparently the liquid food coloring should not be used to color macarons, the added moisture will affect the cookie.



The next step is to add the egg whites to the almond flour mixture and fold them together.



I then piped the batter onto the parchment paper.



The next step is very important, you have to let them sit for at least 15 minutes before putting them in to the oven. This is needed to create the "foot" of the macaron.

They bake up rather quickly, but have to rest on the parchment paper for 10 minutes before removing them.



After making all the raspberry cookies, I repeated the procedures with freeze dried blueberries and blue food coloring.



For the filling I used the trusty ol' Wilton buttercream recipe. I took one cookie, spread a small amount of icing on the flat edge and put another cookie on top.



They taste absolutely delicious. I love that the blueberry cookies remind me of Boo-berry cereal and makes me want to make even more of them.



I'm learning as I go along. Next time I won't whip the eggs as long and I'm going to pipe out smaller cookies. But the texture and the taste are perfect!

Fun With Funky Yarn

I once confused a male coworker by pointing out a necklace and telling him, "It's so gaudy! I love it!"

He was under the impression gaudy was bad. Not always.

I am a fan of funky stuff, particularly accessories. I have a major jewelry fetish. Nothing expensive. But the more unique and fun, the better.

A while back, Linda at Knitter's Dream introduced me to Universal Yarn's Cocoon yarn and I bought a couple of balls of Pumpkin Daze.
Thus began my obsession with novelty yarn.



I made a super warm scarf by knitting two stitches on the yarn between each poof. The colors went perfectly with a green wool coat I had and kept me warm all winter.

This past fall, Linda got in new colors by a different yarn maker. At first I wasn't going to buy any, I had just made a scarf the previous winter. And then I saw these colors.



I had to have them because they're Maleficent's colors. You know, Maleficent. The evil fairy from Disney's Sleeping Beauty?



I've collected all things Maleficent for years. I justified the purchase because I had a black wool coat and these colors went better with that than the Pumpkin Daze yarn. So now each coat has a scarf to match it.

The yarn unravels with about 2 inches of yarn between each poof.



I used size 9 needles and knitted 2 stitches between each poof.



The scarf ended up being 5 inches wide and about 65 inches long.
It is super warm, very soft, and, whenever I wear it, I get plenty of compliments. Yes, complete strangers have approached me and petted these scarves.



As far as I'm concerned, Universal Yarn's Rozetti Yarn is the king of novelty yarns. So far I've used their Cocoon Yarn and, more recently, they're Marina Yarn.

As soon as I heard about this yarn, I was excited to use it. I love frilly things and anything with ruffles. This yarn makes knitting a frilly, ruffled scarf super easy.



While on a trip to visit my grandmother, my mother and I found a wonderful little yarn shop in Corning, New York called Wooly Minded. As usual, the first thing I did was dig into the bargain bin and I found some great deals, including one skein of the Marina yarn in Bronze Age color and it was such a great deal, I couldn't not buy it. I used the One Skein Scarf in Marina pattern to whip up this scarf in two days. Seriously, TWO DAYS.

The yarn looks like a wide knitted ribbon, but as you unravel it, it opens up to a delicate webbing with a wider knitted fabric edge.



The scarf is lightweight, making it perfect for year-round accessorizing and it is surprisingly soft. It is so easy, so much fun, and so cute! It ended up being about 4 inches wide and 66 inches long.



I'm hoping to get my hands on some of Universal's Tundra Yarn next. After that, I'm sure there will be a new, funkier yarn to experiment with.