Better Than Boxed Chocolate Fudge Brownies

Better Than Boxed Chocolate Fudge Brownies - made June 28, 2022 from Butternut Bakery

1/2 cup (70 g) all-purpose flour

2 tablespoons cornstarch

1/4 cup (20 g) Dutch-process cocoa powder

1 teaspoon salt

10 tablespoons (140 g) unsalted butter

3 ounces bittersweet chocolate

2 ounces milk chocolate

3 teaspoons mild oil (vegetable, canola, melted coconut oil)

1 cup (200 g) granulated sugar

1/4 cup (50 g) dark brown sugar, packed

3 large eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

powdered sugar for dusting, optional

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line an 8 x 8 pan with foil and lightly spray with nonstick cooking spray. 
2. In a bowl, whisk together flour, cornstarch, cocoa powder and salt; set aside.
3. In the top half of a double boiler set over hot water, combine butter, chocolates, and oil. Whisk until completely melted and smooth.
4. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, whisk together the eggs, granulated sugar and brown sugar until light and frothy, 2-3 minutes.
5. With the mixer on low, pour in melted chocolate mixture in a slow and steady stream. Mix in vanilla. Remove bowl from mixer and fold in the dry ingredients, using a rubber spatula. Do not overmix.
6. Pour batter into prepared pan and bake for 20 minutes. Remove from oven, close oven door and drop brownie pan against the counter several times. Place back in oven and bake another 18-20 minutes or until toothpick inserted near the center comes out with a few moist crumbs. Cool brownies completely before cutting and serving. Dust with powdered sugar if desired.

I'm running out of unsweetened chocolate which is what my go-to brownie recipe uses and I don't want to order more online just yet, given it's triple digit temps where I now live and I'm afraid of it coming in one melted mess. So I've started trying out new brownie recipes again, preferably one that doesn't use too much or any unsweetened chocolate. 

This one fit the bill with bittersweet and milk chocolates plus cocoa powder. It was easy to make and had a nice, soft, fudgy texture. The flavor was good too with the right amount of chocolate, not too rich. They had a slightly softer texture than my go-to recipe so they seemed a little fragile but I think they'd still be okay to mail in care packages. At least I hope so as that's what I used them for.  

Crumbl Cookies review #23 - Vanilla Crumb Cake ft Golden Oreo and Maple Cinnamon Roll

Crumbl Cookies review #23 - Vanilla Crumb Cake ft Golden Oreo and Maple Cinnamon Roll

After my 6-pack week the week before and because I still had cookie pieces from that order wrapped up in my freezer, I had only planned to get one flavor this week, namely the maple cinnamon. I had already tried the Buckeye Brownie (although back then they called it the Peanut Butter Buckeye) and didn't care for it, I don't like sprinkles in my cookies so pass on the Confetti and I wasn't interested in another lime cookie with that lime wedge on top. I don't know why that bothers me but it does.

I was initially not going to get the Golden Oreo one because I don't like Golden Oreos. I can, have and will mainline the regular Oreos but I don't like the artificial vanilla taste of Golden Oreos so this was going to be a pass for me as well. But I asked in my Crumbl Facebook group (yes, that's a thing) and someone assured me the cookie itself didn't taste like a Golden Oreo and  was more like the vanilla sugar cookie. 

I love Crumbl's vanilla sugar cookie so cue my FOMO; I got this cookie as well. I'm glad I did as it was delicious. I wouldn't say it was exactly like the vanilla sugar; it seemed more like a brown sugar cookie base. I could've done without the white chocolate chips though since I'm not a fan of white chocolate but I still liked this cookie. I ate the mini golden oreo on top but that only affirmed for me that I still don't like Golden Oreos. I'm glad I tried this cookie though.

Now we get to the maple cinnamon roll which was what I was originally going to get anyway. I didn't get to eat it warm as I wasn't hungry when I first picked it up while I was running a couple of errands and by the time I got to it, it was already room temperature. 

That didn't affect the deliciousness of this cookie though and I enjoyed it. The only thing I didn't like was - you guessed it - the frosting. The texture was similar to the buttercream on the cookie butter cookie from last week and that just isn't a good mouthfeel to me. Too greasy. The flavor was good though; I ended up scraping off most of the frosting and leaving just enough to let the maple blend with the cinnamon.

The cookie base with the cinnamon and without the frosting reminds me of a good snickerdoodle and you know I love me some snickerdoodles. The cookie base was more dense-cookie but not as dense as shortbread yet also not the pillowy-soft cakey-cookie. It's hard to describe; you had to be there, lol. Good cookie, glad I tried it but likely wouldn't get again if there were other flavors I wanted to try next time it comes out.

Crumbl Cookies review #22 - Cookie Butter Ice Cream, Honeybun, Galaxy Brownie, Rocky Road

Crumbl Cookies review #22 - Cookie Butter Ice Cream, Honeybun, Galaxy Brownie, Rocky Road, visited June 25, 2022

Why, yes, I did get a 6-pack last week. There go my 6-pack abs. Nah, I'm lying, I don't have 6-pack abs. And Crumbl is only 1 (or 6) reason(s) why. What happened to "1 or 2 flavors a week", you ask?

In theory, it's because one of my nieces and her husband were in town and, in addition to my other niece who lives locally and her boyfriend (him of the snickerdoodle cupcake fame), I thought I would have all these extra mouths to help me consume the cookies. Except my local niece was sick and didn't have an appetite and my visiting niece tries to go dairy-free as much as possible. Plus her husband doesn't like sweets. I know, I know, how am I related to these people?

Cookie Butter Ice Cream

But what the heck. I had gotten back from my business trip in time to have one last day of last week's Crumbl offerings and I took advantage of it. I got two of the cookie butter because I'd never had it before and...cookie butter. Now I did cut each cookie into fourths and gave away as much as I could to my nieces (really, I did). But yes, I kept enough for myself and put most in the freezer to see me through at least a week or two of Crumbl cookie fourths to be doled out each day in the name of moderation.

I had high hopes for the cookie butter but I didn't like it as much as I expected. I liked the cookie itself - a lot - because it did have good cookie butter/Biscoff cookie flavor. But I didn't like the mouthfeel of the buttercream icing. It left a greasy impression in my mouth and hit my taste buds as bland. Like greasy, dense whipped cream. And you know how I feel about whipped cream. I liked the cookie base but I liked it better warm than chilled. I tried a bite chilled as it was originally meant to be but the cookie butter flavor wasn't very pronounced. The second 1/4 cookie I ate which had been in the freezer, I let thaw then popped it into the microwave for 6 seconds. Way, way better warm. The cookie butter flavor came through much more clearly and the texture was better to me.

Honeybun

The honeybun was a nice surprise, also when eaten warm. I don't eat honeybuns so I didn't have the real thing to compare the cookie to but I liked the cookie itself, the flavor, the texture and the light glaze. Soft-cakey texture and delicious cookie. Thumbs up.

Galaxy Brownie

I don't eat Galaxy or Cosmic Brownies either (that's a storebought, packaged snack brownie, right?) but people who do say this cookie comes close to the real thing. I wouldn't know about that but I do know this is very similar to a brownie in round-cookie form. It was soft but not fragile and had both good flavor and texture. Sometimes I find Crumbl's chocolate cookies a bit too rich for me but this one had a good balance between chocolatey-ness (yes, that's a word, 'kay?) and cakey texture. Not sure it's special enough for me to get again or even to try a copycat recipe of it but I enjoyed it.

Rocky Road

Sadly though, I didn't enjoy the Rocky Road very much. I normally steer clear of Rocky Road anything because I don't like marshmallows unless they're melted and being used to hold Rice Krispies together. I'll eat s'mores as long as you hold the marshmallow and the graham cracker. But since I thought (at the time), I was sharing these with my nieces, I added the Rocky Road to my order, figuring I would eat 1/4 and pawn, I mean, give, the other 3/4 cookie away to the others. Which, I ended up doing. My nieces liked the Rocky Road much more than I did. I made sure to take the 1/4 piece of cookie that had the least amount of marshmallow so the quarter cookie I had was good enough. The chocolate cookie was a more dense, typical chocolate Crumbl cookie than the Galaxy cookie and quite rich. The almonds helped cut the richness though so I liked them more than I usually liked having nuts in my cookies. If you're a Rocky Road fan, this is a good cookie. I'm glad I tried it but probably wouldn't get it again.

Coconut Sugar Cookies

Coconut Sugar Cookies - made dough June 26, 2022 from Pizzazzerie

2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, softened

1 1/4 cups granulated sugar plus 1/3 cup sugar for rolling

1 large egg + 1 large egg yolk

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 teaspoons coconut extract

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

3/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup unsweetened coconut flakes

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
2. In the bowl of stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together butter and 1 1/4 cups granulated sugar on medium-high speed for 3 minutes, until texture is light and fluffy.
3. Beat in egg, egg yolk, vanilla and coconut extract, mixing on medium speed until combined.
4. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt. Slowly add dry ingredients to creamed mixture, mixing after each addition until just combined. Scrape down sides and bottom of bowl to keep mixture even textured. Beat in coconut flakes.
5. Portion into golf-ball-size dough balls and flatten slightly into thick discs. Roll in additional granulated sugar. Evenly space on prepared baking sheets. Bake for 11-13 minutes or until edges are golden brown and middles have set. Cool for several minutes on baking sheets then remove to wire rack to cool completely.

2nd batch baked in a non-convection setting

I was on a business trip last week that had me in a different time zone. Thanks to a(nother) delayed connection, I went more than 24 hours without sleep before I finally made it home. This meant some recent difficulties with jet lag and adjusting to my local time zone again. Which turned out to work in my (baking) favor because when you wake up at 2 am and give up trying to get back to sleep after an hour, you've got time to bake some cookies at o'dark thirty before the day gets too hot.

1st batch baked on the convection setting

I wanted to try something a little different for my next military care package for Soldiers Angels and I liked how these looked on Pizzazerie's blog. Mine didn't turn out quite as good looking as hers. I'm going to blame still trying to adjust to my new oven. It heats up faster and bakes more to the posted temp than the ovens at my old house (those ovens ran cool) when it's in a non-convection setting. I like to bake cookies on a convection setting and for the first batch, I had it on 350 degrees convection. 

It's hard to tell from the pictures but the cookies baked on the convection setting baked more slowly and spread more. For the second batch, I switched to the regular setting and those seemed to bake faster and spread less. It's possible I should've waited a few minutes after the oven reached the convection setting temperature before putting the first cookie sheet in as perhaps the oven wasn't hot enough. 

Despite these oven adventures, I loved how these cookies turned out. The sugar coating before baking makes them a little sweeter after baking so if you want to cut back on the sweetness, you can omit the coating step as the cookies themselves are sweet enough without it.

I liked both the texture and flavor of these. I didn't use coconut extract like the original recipe called for because I don't like the artificial flavor of coconut extract. Instead I substituted vanilla extract and I liked the flavor just fine. If you do want to amp up the coconut flavor, you can use coconut extract and/or roll these in coconut flakes before baking. These cookies also hold up well in hot summer weather since they don't need a frosting and they're sturdy enough to mail or bring to a summer get together.

Jumbo Chocolate Cookies

Jumbo Chocolate Cookies - made dough June 13, 2022 from Tastes Better From Scratch 

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup cocoa powder

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup butter, softened

1/2 cup granulated sugar

3/4 cup brown sugar, firmly packed

1 egg, room temperature

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup chocolate chips

1. In a mixing bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda and salt; set aside.
2. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together butter, granulated sugar and brown sugar until well combined and fluffy, 2-3 minutes. Add egg and vanilla extract, beating until just combined. Add dry ingredients in 2 additions, beating until just combined after each addition. Fold in chocolate chips.
3. Portion dough into golf-ball-size or larger dough balls. Cover and chill or freeze for several hours or overnight.
4. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper and evenly space dough balls. Bake 12-15 minutes or until edges are set and middles no longer look raw; do not overbake. Remove from oven and let rest on baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing cookies to wire rack to cool completely.

I'm slowly, slowly getting back into my baking groove again. It's very slow going because I'm in a much smaller kitchen in my new house than the old one and some of my stuff is still packed and what I have unpacked, I have no idea where I put it. Yeah, I know, my First World problems are seriously inconvenient.

The good news is my Kitchen Aid mixer occupies one of the few prime counter spots in the new kitchen and I do know where my measuring cups and measuring spoons are. So all is not lost. However, I have no idea where any one of my 4 cookie dough scoops of varying sizes are, So I went with two spoons and my eyeballs to portion out cookie dough balls of (roughly) the same size. Turns out I don't need 4 cookie dough scoops of varying sizes after all, just two spoons.

This dough was easy to work with, not too soft or too sticky, despite the fact that I was making this in triple digit heat (let's hear it for air conditioning and electric fans). I only made one dough ball as "jumbo-size" so I could test out how it was originally supposed to be. The rest of the dough I made into normal-people-sized cookies since they were all earmarked to go out in care packages and presumably not everyone has my (extremely high) tolerance for chocolate and sugar.

I like to wait until a chocolate chocolate cookie has fully cooled before I eat it as I prefer the texture that way - fudgy but not too mushy. This was still slightly lukewarm when I ate (a piece of) it as it was getting late and I didn't think I needed a sugar high before going to bed. This was pretty good. I used the high end cocoa (formerly known as Pernigotti) which makes all the difference in getting that deep, rich chocolate flavor. It wasn't overwhelmingly rich, although that may have been I just ate a small piece, but it still had superb chocolate flavor.

Crumbl Cookies review #21 - Caramel Shortbread featuring Twix

Crumbl Cookies review #21 - Caramel Shortbread featuring Twix, June 13, 2022

Caramel Shortbread featuring Twix

Just one cookie to review this time as I wasn't interested in any of the other flavors on offer last week: Peanut Butter Cup (not big on peanut butter), M&M cookie (not special enough), Peach Sugar (I only like the real thing when it comes to peaches) and Classic Krispy Bar (I love Rice Krispie treats but for the cost of 1 Crumbl cookie, I can make a pan of them).

I even thought of skipping this lineup entirely since it seemed like the Twix would be good but predictable. But since I had tried a copycat recipe of the Twix cookie, I decided I wanted to try the Crumbl original as well.

I'm glad I did. The shortbread base was fine (predictable as I had, well, predicted) but I absolutely loved the caramel on this cookie. I don't know if they made it from scratch or bought it already pre-made but it was excellent. Just the right amount of "chewiness" and not cloyingly sweet. It complemented the chocolate layer and the shortbread cookie perfectly.

If I had a bone to pick with Crumbl about this cookie, it's with the topping. They advertised it as supposedly having "chunks" of Twix bars sprinkled over the chocolate. Um, how about crumbs? I've seen worse with other people's cookies that literally just have Twix dust. I get that Twix dust would be inevitable when chopping up mini Twix bars but I wish the employees had been a bit more diligent of making sure each cookie had at least a few chunks mixed in with the Twix dust. Otherwise, this was a good cookie. Not super spectacular and I think the copycat recipe would suffice but still a good cookie and I'm glad I tried it.

Crumbl Cookies review #20 - Snickerdoodle Cupcake, Orange Creamsicle and Buttermilk Pancake

Crumbl Cookies review #20 - Snickerdoodle Cupcake, Orange Creamsicle and Pancake, June 6 and 10, 2022

I'm almost caught up on my Crumbl reviews, depending on when I can publish this post. The week of June 6 was an eventful one for me as, a few days earlier, I had finished packing up my house and moved more than 400 miles, unpacked (sort of), went right back to work without missing a beat (except for my unfortunate new internet deciding to throw me off my zoom meetings multiple times a day). Oh and did I mention I was also recovering from Covid at the time?

So, yeah, the first two pictures above weren't taken until almost the end of the week, more than 5 days after I tested negative and could be around people again. 

Snickerdoodle Cupcake

But when I first arrived in the new digs, although I wasn't contagious anymore according to the CDC, I was still feeling a bit lousy and wasn't leaving the house for a few more days, just to be on the safe side. I'm vaccinated and boostered and Covid still kicked my ass so it definitely isn't something I would want anyone to catch, particularly from me.

Enter my niece's boyfriend. I had texted my niece the week's lineup of flavors and asked what she wanted "in case" I went out later in the week and got a 4-pack (you know I was planning on it). To my surprise, she texted back and said her boyfriend was going to bring me Crumbl and asked which flavor I wanted.

Whut?? What a nice gesture! The old, healthy, raised-Asian me would've said "oh you don't have to, I'll get you guys some when I go out later." The new, sickie me still trying to settle in texted back "snickerdoodle cupcake please, thanks!" 

Later that day, her boyfriend dropped off not one but TWO snickerdoodle cupcake cookies. Would it have been presumptuous if, along with my heartfelt thank you, I would've texted her, "hang onto this one, mmkay?" Probably, so I didn't. Instead I thanked them both and settled for telling her he's my favorite of all her boyfriends so far, lol. Yeah, I'm not that subtle and only a little presumptuous. 

To my sickie self, the cookies hit the spot. I can't eat a whole one in one sitting (usually) so I did my usual cutting into 4 pieces, wrapping each piece and putting what I wasn't eating that day into the freezer. Two pieces a day got me through the rest of the work week. The snickerdoodle cupcake was amazing. I loved the cookie base, maybe even more than the plain snickerdoodle from a few months back. Somehow it was more snickerdoodle-y, if that makes sense. There was still too much frosting for me though but once I scraped off some of it, the cookie was perfect. A little frosting goes a long way but the cookie was delicious. Still not quite as good as the churro but fecking amazing nonetheless.

Orange Creamsicle

Fortunately I did feel well enough a few days later to make my own Crumbl run. My new house is even closer to a Crumbl than my last house (yay, oh no, eek = all my emotions about that) and in the same strip mall as a grocery store so on my grocery run to pick up a few necessities, I had to make a Crumbl stop.

Since I'd already had the snickerdoodle thanks to my niece's boyfriend, I got the remaining two flavors this week that I wanted to try: the Orange Creamsicle and the Buttermilk Pancake.

I liked the Orange Creamsicle. It wasn't as "fluffy" in texture as the snickerdoodle but still a solid cookie base. The frosting wasn't as thick (thank you, Crumbl) which also worked well. Some people thought the orange was artificial tasting and I can see where they're coming from. It's likely from orange extract which can impart that artificial taste. But as someone who grew up on Tang, I didn't mind it and I still liked the cookie. I didn't eat it chilled as I don't like chilled cookies but I thought it was good at room temperature.

Buttermilk Pancake

Last but not least is the Buttermilk Pancake cookie. I had missed out on the Waffle Cookie they had previously as (once again), I was out of town and out of reach of a Crumbl during that week. I don't know how the waffle cookie compares to the pancake cookie but I thought the pancake was pretty good. I don't see it as a substitute for an actual pancake or even as a cutesy attempt to capture a pancake in cookie form (sorry but if I want a pancake, I'll make a pancake). However, this was a good sugar-cookie-based "buttermilk" cookie. The nod to the pancake theme was in the maple glaze along with a scoop of butter buttercream made to look like a round dollop of butter.

This was supposed to be eaten warm but I wasn't hungry enough to down 200ish calories in 1/4 of a cookie so I ate it later at room temp. Loved the texture, as always, on a Crumbl cookie. The glaze plus buttercream dollop was a little overwhelming for my non-frosting taste buds but the flavor was still good. I'd get this again if there was no other flavor on the menu that I wanted but needed a Crumbl fix.

All in all, another good week with 3 of the flavors I wanted to try. They also had the Iced Oatmeal but since I'd already had it before, I skipped it. Plus I really like the copycat version from Lifestyle of a Foodie so I know I can always make it for myself if I really wanted it again.