Olive Oil Brownies

Olive Oil Brownies - made January 28, 2022 from Baking with Dorie by Dorie Greenspan

1/2 cup olive oil

5 ounces bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped

1 cup (136 grams) all-purpose flour

1/4 cup (21 grams) unsweetened cocoa powder

1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt or 3/4 teaspoon fleur de sel

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

2/3 cup (133 grams) granulated sugar

3 cold large eggs

1 cold large egg yolk

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Line an 8-inch baking pan with foil and lightly spray with nonstick cooking spray.
2. In the top half of a double boiler set over hot water, combine olive oil and bittersweet chocolate. Whisk until chocolate is completely melted and mixture is smooth and combined. Remove from heat.
3. In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa powder, salt and black pepper.
4. Add granulated sugar to melted chocolate mixture and stir to combine. Add eggs and egg yolk, one at a time, whisking after each addition until smooth and combined.
5. Stir in dry ingredients and mix until combined. Pour batter into prepared pan and smooth into an even layer.
6. Bake 28 to 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out with a few moist crumbs, not raw batter. Cool completely before cutting and serving.

Much as I love Dorie Greenspan and her recipes, I admit I was a little skeptical about trying out this recipe. I didn't mind using olive oil and actually wanted to try this recipe primarily because it uses olive oil and I have this Baking Blend Olive Oil a friend had given me that I wanted to try out.

No, it wasn't the olive oil but the black pepper that gave me pause. Pepper? In a brownie? I was a tad nervous whether they would turn out and how they would taste. 

But faint heart and all that so I forged ahead with it. Fortunately, my fears were unfounded. This made a thick batter similar to my go-to recipe for brownies although it wasn't quite as fudgy as mine. But still, it was fudgy enough. More importantly, the black pepper in it was fine. You actually can't really taste it but I could tell there was something different about it. 

To be honest, I only had a sliver as I was packaging these up for care packages. But what I did taste was pretty good - fudgy, chewy, chocolaty with yes, a little bit of a bite. Which is why she's Dorie Greenspan and I just follow recipes in cookbooks, lol. So if you're looking for something a little different, give these a try and see what you think.

My Riff on a Crumbl Copycat of Twix Caramel Cookies

Crumbl Copycat Twix Caramel Cookies (Riff'd) - made January 22, 2022 from Lifestyle of a Foodie

Cookies
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar

1 large egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 cups plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup cornstarch

1 teaspoon baking powder

Good quality caramel or make your own by melting 7 ounces caramels with 1/4 cup heavy cream

Chocolate topping

1/2 cup Nutella

1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips, melted

1 cup feuilletine or Rice Krispies

1. Make the cookie base: In a mixing bowl, cream together the butter, oil, brown sugar and granulated sugar until well combined. Add egg and vanilla; mix to combine.
2. In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, cornstarch, baking powder and salt. Add in two additions to butter mixture, mixing after each addition until just combined.
3. Portion dough into 8 even-sized portions and pat into a thick disc. Flatten slightly with the bottom of a glass but keep thick. Cover and chill for 30 minutes in the refrigerator.
4. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line baking sheet with parchment paper. Evenly space chilled dough discs. Bake 8-10 minutes or until edges are slightly golden and middles no longer look raw or shiny. Cool 10-15 minutes.
5. Warm caramel slightly so it's pourable but still thick and not runny. Place a generous spoonful over each cooled cookie.
6. Make Nutella crunch topping: In the top half of a double boiler over hot water, melt generous 1/2 cup of semisweet chocolate chips and scant 1/2 cup of Nutella. Stir until completely melted and combined. Add feuilletine or Rice Krispies, stirring to coat completely. Top a generous spoonful over caramel and smooth into an even layer.

You're probably going to start seeing a lot of Crumbl copycat recipes in the foreseeable future. I'll explain why in a later post. For now, let's go with this one for the Crumbl Twix cookie.

I've never had the real thing at Crumbl as they weren't on offer the few times I've been passing the closest one to me over the mountain pass of the Sierra Nevadas on my way to and from the Bay Area. Even I won't drive almost a hundred miles "just" for a cookie. Don't think I hadn't thought about it but my sweet tooth lost that common sense war.

However, I did have this jar of caramel that I needed to use before it expired and it seemed like the perfect time to try a copycat recipe of that Twix cookie: shortbread cookie base, caramel layer and chocolate topping.

I say in the directions to let the cookies cool completely before adding the caramel. You can see I advise that based on my own (impatient) mistakes. I wanted to try the cookie somewhat warm so I rushed that whole caramel spreading process. Oops. You definitely want to click on the blog post to go to the original recipe from Lifestyle of a Foodie so you can see how neatly it's supposed to be done. Mine look a little more, er, homemade.

Where I did my own riff of this was in the chocolate topping. Rather than plain chocolate or a simple ganache, I melted chocolate chips and nutella (equal parts) then added feuilletine flakes for crunch.

They were amazing. If you don't have feuilletine flakes, Rice Krispies will do. They will just look a little more chunky but will add the crunch just fine.

When the cookies cool, the toppings do firm up, as the chocolate sets. For maximum enjoyment, I recommend warming up for 10-15 seconds in the microwave to let the chocolate topping soften. 

I also liked the shortbread base of this cookie, firm but not hard. Chewy with good butter flavor (use fresh butter and real vanilla extract, please). I can't swear how authentic it is but like I always say with all of the Crumbl copycat recipes I've tried so far, they're good cookies in their own right.

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.