Brown Butter Brownies

I have been searching for the best brownie recipe ever. I've tried Ruth Reichl's brownies. They are good, but much more like pudding with a cooked top then a proper fudgey brownie. I've tried everything from Martha Stewart recipes to random blogs I had never seen before, but none of them seemed to be the perfect consistency until I found Brown Butter Brownies.

The recipe reads as follows:

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 sticks salted butter
• 2 1/2 cups granulated sugar
• 1 1/2 cups unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp water
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 4 eggs
• 1 cup all purpose flour
• 1 cup high quality semi-sweet chocolate chips

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Prepare a 9x13 baking dish by spraying with non-stick cooking spray and lining with parchment paper (optional, but I like to do it so I can lift the brownies right out of the dish).
3. Melt butter in a large saucepan over medium high heat. Stir constantly until butter has reached a light brown color and little "bits" have formed.
4. Pour the butter into the bowl of a stand mixer. Add the sugar and cocoa powder and beat until smooth, almost creamy.
5. Add the salt, water, and vanilla. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing in between each addition.
6. Add the flour and chocolate chips and mix well. Batter will be VERY thick.
7. Use a sturdy rubber spatula to spread batter in the 9x13 pan. Bake for 25-30 minutes until toothpick inserted comes out clean.
8. Let cool, then cut into 2" squares to serve.

A few things to notice. She used salted butter, which is very unusual. Most bakers, including me, use unsalted butter to give us more control over the baking process and how the final result tastes. I chose not to use salted butter and used one teaspoon of salt and unsalted butter. The recipe also requires you to brown the butter. This step is essential or else the flavor won't be right. Brown butter is cooked untill it is golden brown with a few flecks in the melted butter. You need to watch carefully or else it may burn.

These brownies are now my favorite. They are the perfect combination of chewy and fudgey with a nice contrasting crunch from the chocolate chips that only adds to the the intense chocolate flavor that the brownies already have. I made the mistake of bringing the brownies to an event and didn't have any to take home. Luckily I sneaked a few before putting them on the plate, which, believe me, you will want to do.

Award-Winning Pumpkin Cheesecake

Last Saturday I participated in a pumpkin dessert cook off with my sister. My sister loves pumpkin. LOVES pumpkin. Before October even rolls around she has planned what she is going to bake. So you can see why we decided to enter. We chose to bake a pumpkin cheese cake from allrecipes.com.

Ingredients 

2 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs
1 (9 inch) prepared graham cracker crust
1/2 cup pumpkin puree
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 pinch ground cloves
1 pinch ground nutmeg

Directions 

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C).
2. In a large bowl, combine cream cheese, sugar and vanilla. Beat until smooth. Blend in eggs one at a time. Remove 1 cup of batter and spread into bottom of crust; set aside.
3. Add pumpkin, cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg to the remaining batter and stir gently until well blended. Carefully spread over the batter in the crust.
4. Bake in preheated oven for 35 to 40 minutes, or until center is almost set. Allow to cool, then refrigerate for 3 hours or overnight. Cover with whipped topping before serving.

For this cheesecake, make sure that everything is room tempature, especially the eggs and the cream cheese. This will help your cheesecake not to crack during baking. Another technique you can use to prevent cracking is to bake the cheesecake in a water bath. For a water bath, make sure you surround the spring-form pan with aluminum foil (to prevent water coming into the pan), then place the spring-form pan on top of a jelly roll pan filled with boiling water and bake

The recipe for the Gingersnap Crust:

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups crushed gingersnap cookies
1/2  Finely chopped walnuts
1/3 cup butter

We combined these ingredients in a bowl and then pressed the mixture into the pan untill evenly distributed. Then we baked it in the oven for ten minutes at 350 degrees F.
  

 We then made an easy caramel sauce to decorate with. We also decorated with candied pecans and more crushed gingersnaps.

The end result was moist, rich and lighter than a pumpkin pie. The crust was crunchy and had a perfect spicy taste that complemented the pumpkin flavor and candied pecans perfectly. The caramel sauce added a sweetness that with the extra crushed gingersnaps created a match that must have been made in heaven. Unfortunately, even with the pumpkin obsession of my sister and all of our hard work, we only got second place. Next year however....

Flashback: Not On Friday?

As much as I love doing flashbacks on Fridays, there is so much more that I bake. So I have decided to do away with Flashback Fridays and post every Friday, if not more often, on something that I have baked. I will still have an occasional Flashback Friday, but not as often. This post does count for today's post, but I will post soon. I promise!