Brownie Bon Bon

I know I wrote about brownie bon bons before, but they are such an easy, yummy treat to make.  I made them as part of my goody boxes for Christmas.  I know everyone makes cake pops these days, but brownies are so much yummier.  A chocolate covered brownie bite, uh ya. 

One box brownie mix (you all must know how I feel about Ghirardelli's by now), a bag a chocolate chips.  Boom.  Done.  (No, I'm not from Jersey, it just seemed appropriate). I added some crushed candy canes (left overs from my hot cocoa dippers), to be festive.

Hot Cocoa Dippers

I am so crafty this season, Martha Stewart would be proud.  I'm determined to make goody gift boxes for my friends this year, and yes I even got crafty on the boxes.  Today I got started with Hot Cocoa Dippers and Melted Snowman Sugar Cookies.  The snowmen won't be done until tomorrow, so for now I will write about the dippers.

All you need are marshmallows, candy canes, chocolate chips, and sprinkles.  

Break the candy canes so that they are just a stick. 

Push broken side into marshmallow. 

Heat the chocolate chips until almost melted, stirring until completely smooth that way the chocolate is not too thin and hot. 

Dip marshmallow into chocolate.

Sprinkle!

I let mine dry in a wine glass so that the chocolate wouldn't get smudgy.  As long as your chocolate isn't too thin when you dip it, it won't drip.

Santa Hat Brownies

First let me just say that 'pinning' is killing my creativity.  There is just too many cute things on there, why would I ever need to come up with my own ideas?  The Santa Hat Brownies were so cute I had to make them.  And so easy!  I used a box brownies (I know shame on me, but I just did my huge pile of dishes I didn't really want to make a million more.  Plus Ghirardelli is just so darn good, why mess with perfection?) I also made a cream cheese frosting, have I posted that recipe?  It's pretty delicious. 

Cream Cheese Frosting

Mix in standing mixer:

1/2 cup + 3 tbl butter

1 cup powdered sugar

Cream together until smooth and creamy

Add:

1 lb (2 boxes) softened cream cheese

Add:

lemon juice

vanilla bean paste

I just add a healthy squirt of lemon juice and vanilla bean paste (about 1 tbl each) to the mix and keep adding until it tastes just like cheesecake



Under Construction Snowman

The local Construction company had their Christmas Party last night & I got to make their cake.  She wanted a whimsical Christmas scene that also involved construction.  So I made a giant snowman that the construction workers were building.  Cute idea right?  I was so excited to make it even though I had no idea where to even begin.  I seem to have this problem of coming up with all these grand ideas and then being a complete stress ball for a week trying to make it happen. Some times I forget I'm not a professional cake maker.  I had a lot of problems with this cake but in the end I was actually happy with the result.
Now I'm gonna post a pic of the finished result, but I have to admit I made a total rookie mistake, that I know better then to do, but for some reason I completely forgot to put proper support under the head, let's just blame that on prego-brain.  So the next day the body started to sag and bulge from the weight, which makes the fondant to tear (easy enough to hide with decorations), but also to change the shape.  But I thought ah well, snowmen aren't perfect ball shapes anyways.  I also have to say that it looked better in person, the camera just accentuated all the flaws.  Okay disclaimers over.....

In case your thinking 'what is she talking about, that snowman is perfectly cute'.  Let me just post a pic of it when it was a work in progress.

See what I mean?  Still, I love the idea, and all problems aside, I love this cake.  I think the little workers carrying the chocolate arm is one of my favorite parts, and the rosy cheeks.

  MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!

Hot Buttered Rum Frosting

I had a stroke of genius last night and of course it involved buttercream.  I tested the recipe this morning and with just a bit of tweaking, it came out awesome!

I started with my Italian Buttercream recipe, which is basically adding a simple syrup to a meringue, then adding butter to it all.  This time I used a brown sugar instead of white, and spiced the butter with plenty of cinnamon, nutmeg, crushed cloves, and a bit of salt.  At the end I added vanilla bean paste and rum extract.  I'd use the real thing except my liquor supplies are pretty low these days. 

2 cups brown sugar

1/3 cup water

1 tea cream of tartar

5 egg whites

3 cups butter, mixed with:

6 tea cinnamon

3 tea nutmeg

1 1/2 tea crushed cloves

1 1/2 tea salt

1 tbl vanilla bean paste

rum or rum extract to taste (I used about 1 tbl)

Mint Chocolate Crinkle Cooies

Okay, I slacked for a bit with Halloween and Thanksgiving, but I'm feeling a bit more myself and there's just too many cute and delicious things to bake for Christmas that I had to get baking.  I thought I'd start with something simple.  Mint chocolate crinkle cookies.



Here's what you need:

1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

2 cups sugar

1/2 cup veg oil

4 eggs (room temp)

2 tea van extract

2 cups flour

2 tea baking powder

1/2 tea salt

powdered sugar

Here's what you do:

Mix together cocoa, sugar, and oil.

Beat in eggs one at a time.

Stir in vanilla.

Combine flour, baking powder, & salt.

Add to cocoa mixture.

Stir in chips.

Cover dough, refrigerate at least 4 hours.

Pre heat oven to 350.

Line cookie sheet with parchment paper.

Roll dough into balls about 1"

Coat each ball in powdered sugar

Bake approx 8 min

You want the cookies to be a bit gooey still when you pull them out.  Let the cookies cool completely and they will be like a brownie.  I over baked mine a bit the first time, but everyone at my boyfriend's office still loved them, so you really can't go wrong, but I prefer mine a bit more brownie-like, less cake like.