Cream Cheese Chocolate Chip Brownies

Cream Cheese Chocolate Chip Brownies - made January 21, 2022 from Creme de la Crumb 

Cream Cheese Batter

2/3 cup semisweet chocolate chips, melted

1 egg

8 ounces cream cheese, softened

1/3 cup granulated sugar

2 tablespoons flour

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Brownie batter

1/2 cup butter, melted

1/4 cup cocoa powder

2 eggs

3/4 cup granulated sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/8 teaspoon salt

1 cup milk chocolate chips

Frosting

1/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips, melted

2 ounces cream cheese, softened

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

2 cups powdered sugar

1 tablespoon milk

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line an 8 x 8" pan with foil and lightly spray with nonstick cooking spray; set aside.
2. Cream Cheese batter: in a medium bowl, stir together melted chocolate chips, egg, cream cheese, sugar, flour and vanilla until smooth; set aside.
3. Brownie batter: in a large bowl, whisk together melted butter and cocoa powder until combined and smooth. Beat in eggs, sugar, vanilla and salt until well combined.
4. Add cream cheese batter to brownie batter and mix until incorporated. Fold in chocolate chips.
5. Pour batter into prepared pan, smooth into an even layer. Bake for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out with a few moist crumbs. Cool completely.
6. Prepare frosting: blend together melted chocolate and cream cheese until smooth. Add vanilla and mix to combine. Gradually add powdered sugar, beating until smooth and combined; thin with milk if needed for a spreadable consistency. Spread over cooled brownies.

The original recipe called these Cream Cheese Chocolate Chip Brownies but I think these would be more accurately called Chocolate Cream Cheese Brownies. Mostly because the brownie is made of chocolate cream cheese.

Rather than the typical cream cheese brownie of making a cream cheese batter and a brownie batter that then get swirled together, this has you making both batters then mixing them completely together for a homogenous chocolate brownie batter. Hence, chocolate cream cheese.

The result? Genius. I loved the texture on this brownie. Dense and fudgy without being overwhelming. For those like me who aren't a huge fan of the tang of cream cheese, you don't get it in this brownie. The cream cheese contributes more to the fudgy texture rather than the flavor. I even liked the frosting - and you know I'm not a fan of frosting.

But this made just the right of frosting and also didn't have the tang of cream cheese. Overall, a great brownie.

Just one cautionary note: the recipe says to bake for 30-35 minutes. I ended up baking mine for almost an hour before I was satisfied with the toothpick test. The batter is creamy and thick so don't expect a completely "clean" toothpick test. A few moist crumbs or something beyond raw batter is fine. Every oven is different so go by the toothpick test and appearance. Mine developed a bit of a crust before I deemed them done enough to take out. But the frosting takes care of that.

MJ's Top Secret Chocolate Chip Cookies

MJ's Top Secret Chocolate Chip Cookies - made dough January 16, 2022 from Modern Honey

1 cup butter

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons dark brown sugar

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 large egg

1 large egg yolk

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

2 cups plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chunks

3/4 cup milk chocolate chunks

1. In a medium saucepan over medium-low heat, melt butter. When completely melted, add brown sugar and granulated sugar; remove from heat. Whisk until mixture is glossy and combined. Let cool to room temperature.
2. Add egg, egg yolk and vanilla; stir well to combine.
3. Stir in flour, baking soda and salt until just combined. Fold in chocolate chips. Wrap dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate until firm, about 30 minutes. Portion into golf-ball-size dough balls, cover or wrap in plastic and refrigerate an additional 24-36 hours.
4. If not ready to bake after the additional chilling time, place in freezer bags and freeze.
5. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper and evenly space dough balls. Bake 12-15 minutes or until edges are set and middles are just barely past the raw stage. Remove from oven and let cool on baking sheets for several minutes. Transfer to wire rack to cool completely.

I'm randomly trying out new chocolate chip cookie recipes again. I have a couple of good go-to recipes I use more often than not: this one for chewy and this one for dense-cakey-chewy.

Yet I still enjoy trying out new recipes, especially from a blog I've had good results from before. Like from Modern Honey.

There are many blogs touting they have the "best" recipe for something. And it could be true....for them. Everyone has different preferences though so I always take it all with a grain of salt.

But it doesn't mean they're not good or great. It's just that I have reservations about calling anything the best because they would only be my best, not necessarily anyone else's.

Case in point, this is a really good chocolate chip cookie. Not sure I'd consider it the best, based on my preferences for a chocolate chip cookie but that doesn't mean it wasn't really good. It was. 

This calls for melting the butter rather than creaming it so it has a dense, chewy texture. It also has a very rich brown-sugar-caramel flavor profile, a hallmark of an excellent chocolate chip cookie. The edges were crisp and the middle was chewy, another thing I prefer in my chocolate chip cookies.

I don't know if it was my oven or my baking time but the taste test cookie, pictured below, and a much more generous size than the ones I mailed out in care packages, got baked more evenly overall than I expected. Normally I bake cookies just until the edges are set and the middles are just barely past the raw state. Once the cookie cools, the texture is what I like best of being soft-chewy-dense while the edges are crisp.

This one baked all the way through so the whole thing was a more even texture of crisp-chewy throughout. I also don't know if my sweet tooth was taking a break but this was a little too sweet and a bit too rich for me. Still good but if you want it less rich or to cut the sweetness, I'd scale back on the milk chocolate chips.

If the taste test cookie looks markedly different from the rest of the cookies pictured above, it's because, due to my preference for milk chocolate, I portioned out a chunk of the dough to only mix with milk chocolate chips then I added semisweet chips, mini chocolate chips and caramelized cocoa nibs to the rest of the dough for the cookies I was giving away.

In hindsight, that might not have been the best move as the cookie itself was rich enough without me adding a ton of (large) milk chocolate chips to it. Hence why my sweet tooth might have cried uncle on me.

Ferrero Rocher Brownies

Ferrero Rocher Brownies - made January 19, 2022 from Sugar Salt Magic 

3/4 cup (95 grams) all-purpose flour

1/4 cup (25 grams) unsweetened cocoa powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

3.5 ounces bittersweet (70% cacao) chocolate

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature

3 large eggs

1 cup granulated sugar

1/4 cup packed dark brown sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

16 Ferrero Rochers, unwrapped

1/4 cup Nutella

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line an 8 x 8" baking pan with foil and lightly spray with nonstick cooking spray.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa powder and salt; set aside.
3. In the top half of a double boiler set over hot water, combine bittersweet chocolate and butter, whisking until completely melted and smooth. Remove from heat and cool for several minutes.
4. In a separate bowl, whisk together eggs, granulated sugar, dark brown sugar and vanilla extract until combined. Add butter-chocolate mixture and stir together until combined,
5. Add dry ingredients and stir until combined and mixture is glossy.
6. Pour into prepared pan and press Ferrero Rocher in an evenly spaced 4 x 4 pattern.
7. Heat Nutella for 30 seconds in the microwave, stir for an even texture and pour over brownie batter.
8. Bake for 40-45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in a corner comes out clean and inserted near the center comes out with a few moist crumbs, not raw batter. Cool completely before cutting and serving.

This is an easy "hack" to up your brownie game: add Ferrero Rochers to a fudgy brownie base and drizzle-dollop Nutella over the top before baking.

Mine don't look very pretty but the Nutella blends in nicely once you bake it so it isn't a big deal. And the flavor is on point with a fudgy brownie base, the Nutella adding sweetness and richness and the Ferrero Rochers adding a bit of crunch.

For a prettier look, I recommend swirling the Nutella on top of the brownie batter then pressing in the Ferrero Rochers. No need to cover the Ferrero Rochers completely in the brownie batter; leave them 1/3 to 1/2 showing. They'll sink a little further but the batter is stiff enough to hold them pretty easily.

The versatile part of this brownie is if you don't have Ferrero Rochers, you can substitute other candies like Rolos, peanut butter cups or pretty much any chopped up candies like Snickers, Milky Ways, etc.

Bakery Review - Duff Goldman Red Velvet Heart Cake

Bakery Review: Duff Goldman Red Velvet Heart Cake - received December 10, 2021 via Gold Belly

I'm back with another review of a product from Gold Belly, this time from Duff Goldman. Technically I didn't buy this for myself. It was given to me as a Christmas present from my old college roommate. But it was the red velvet heart cake and in the lead up to Valentine's Day, it seems like a good time to blog about it.

As with every single thing I've ever gotten from Gold Belly, this one arrived well packaged and in great condition. It came packed in dry ice, still chilled and well wrapped. I don't know if that's a condition for all sellers in order to sell through Gold Belly but I haven't ever received anything that wasn't well packaged or didn't arrive in the condition it was supposed to. The minor flaw was a bottom piece of the large red fondant heart broke off but that wasn't a big deal to me.

As for the cake itself, it's quite pretty and also perfect aesthetically as a Valentine's Day gift. As you can see, it's four layers of red velvet cake filled with buttercream then covered with a pink-tinted buttercream and adorned with red fondant hearts. Pretty, right? 

The flavor was also quite good, as I would expect from Duff Goldman. It was fluffy and moist. There was a little too much frosting for me and I don't eat fondant but I merely pushed the excess frosting and red fondant hearts aside and just ate the cake. Was this the best red velvet cake I've ever had? Well, no, but bear in mind I've eaten a LOT of red velvet cakes in my lifetime and I have very picky taste buds. For "the best", I still give the nod to Smith Island Baking Company. But this one from Duff was good and I'm grateful for my old roommate's thoughtfulness in giving me an opportunity to try a Duff Goldman cake (foodie bucket list item checked off).

Oatmeal Cookies from Dorie Greenspan

Oatmeal Cookies - made dough January 11, 2022, modified from Baking with Dorie by Dorie Greenspan

2 cups (272 grams) all-purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 1/2 cups (300 grams) old-fashioned oats (not instant)

2 sticks (8 ounces, 226 grams) unsalted butter, room temperature

3/4 cup (300 grams) packed brown sugar

1/3 cup (67 grams) granulated sugar

1 teaspoon fine sea salt

2 large eggs, room temperature

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

1/4 cup (60 ml) honey

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

1 cup milk chocolate chips

1/2 cup caramelized cocoa nibs

1. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, cinnamon, baking soda and oats; set aside.
2. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment on medium to medium high speed, beat together butter, brown sugar, granulated sugar and salt until well combined and creamy.
3. On low speed, add eggs, one at a time, beating until just combined. Add honey and vanilla; beat until combined.
4. Add flour mixture in 3 additions, mixing on low speed after each addition, until just combined. Fold in chocolate chips and cocoa nibs.
5. Cover with plastic wrap and chill in refrigerator for at least 30 minutes. Once chilled, portion into dough balls and flatten slightly into thick discs. Cover and refrigerate or freeze for several hours or overnight.
6. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheets with parchment paper and evenly space dough balls. Bake for 11 to 13 minutes or until edges have set and middles are barely past the raw stage. Remove from oven and let rest on baking sheets for several minutes before transferring to wire rack to cool completely. 

I've always had good experiences with recipes from Dorie Greenspan. They're straightforward, easy to make (or at least I just choose the easy recipes, ha) and they turn out amazingly delicious.

This oatmeal cookie is no exception. I don't make oatmeal cookies as often as I do other types of cookies (chocolate chip, snickerdoodle, red velvet, chocolate chocolate and so on) so I'm certainly no connoisseur of them. But I can tell you these smelled so good coming out of the oven and their taste didn't disappoint.

Lots of goodness, the edges were crisp and, by dint of being an oatmeal cookie, was satisfyingly chewy. I added a combination of regular semisweet chocolate chips, mini semisweet chocolate chips and caramelized cocoa nibs. No lie, those added to the goodness of these cookies as well.

I like sending oatmeal chocolate chip cookies in military care packages for Soldiers Angels because they're typically sturdy and ship well. Thanks to another angel baker volunteer, I also got the idea to pack them in these individual "thank you" cellophane cookie bags. 

I wrapped each cookie in plastic wrap, put one in each cookie cellophane bag, vacuum-sealed 6 individual cookie bags in a sealer package and placed each vacuum-sealed package in a ziploc freezer bag. Which then all got packed into a priority mail shipping box lined with another plastic bag. I was doing everything possible to keep these cookies from sand, dirt, dust and air so that they'd arrive in good shape. Hopefully they will as (again), these were really good oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. Another winner from Dorie Greenspan,