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Friday, June 5, 2009

Bad Mood Brownies, now with Recipes!


First of all, since it's Friday, run over here real quick. No, it's okay, I'll wait. . .

Oh good, you're back! And speaking of chocolate, I promised you the recipe for the Chocolate Covered Cherry Brownie Bites I made the other day. For the brownie I turned to my favorite fudgy brownie recipe. It's from Alton Brown and it is sooo good! Word to the wise, that center square of brownie never quite gets all the way done, so don't overbake the brownies on its account. Just cut them like usual and snag that center one for yourself. Plop some ice cream on top and enjoy the ooey gooey chocolatey goodness yourself :)

Alton Brownies
Adapted from I'm Just Here for More Food

1 1/4 cups cocoa powder
boiling water to cover the cocoa
2 sticks (8oz) unsalted butter, melted
4 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2/3 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 325.
Prep a mini muffin pan and/or an 8" square pan. (I use two strips of parchment, one going each direction.)
In a medium bowl, steep cocoa in boiling water for 5 minutes. Just keep adding a little water until you get a nice liquid chocolate going on. Maybe a cup worth.
In your mixer, whisk the eggs until light in color and texture.
Whisk melted butter into the chocolate slurry.
In a small bowl, mix the sugars together.
Slowly add the sugar to the eggs.
Add remaining ingredients, altering wet and dry.
Spoon batter into muffin cups and pour the rest into square pan.
Bake the muffin pan for 12-18 minutes. The square pan will take about 45-55 minutes.

The cherry component was this wonderful frozen yogurt that I found on Mike's Table. (I'm totally claiming the cool points too, Mike :)

Mike's Cherry Frozen Yogurt with Chocolate Stracciatella

3 cups cherries
3/4 cup sugar
1 cup greek yogurt (I used my mom's yogurt, which I left sitting in a mesh strainer overnight.)
1 Tbsp cognac (I left this out)
few drops of almond extract
Optional: 1/2 cup bittersweet chocolate (I used a whole bar of Lindt Extra Dark.)

Pit the cherries.
In a pan over medium high heat, stir together the cherries and sugar.
After the cherries release most of their juices, about 10 minutes, remove from heat.
Pour cherry syrup into blender and puree until smooth.
Pour into a bowl set over an ice bath and let cool, about 20 minutes.
Mix in the yogurt, cognac and almond extract and park it in the fridge for at least 2 hours.
Churn in your ice cream machine.
When you're a few minutes out chop the chocolate and melt in the microwave in 30 second bursts.
Let it cool a bit, and then slowly pour it into the churning ice cream, attempting to avoid the beater.
Pour into a freezerproof container and freeze overnight. (Or at least restrain yourself for 4 hours. It's better to wait, but sometimes crises arise. I get it.)

To serve, place a scoop of ice cream on top of each mini-brownie. (My mini scooper is one of my favorite kitchen tools!) I topped it with a little melted chocolate thinned with some cream.

Now I need to take a minute to rave about the stracciatella. I am SO happy to have learned this method of getting chocolate into ice cream! I love mint chocolate chip ice cream, but I rarely bring it home anymore. I went on a taste testing rampage and tried every brand our grocery carries. I cannot remember which it was that didn't have the big, nasty, waxy chunks of chocolate in it!

Anywho, I can't wait to make my own mint chocolate chip and introduce the chocolate with this method. The chocolate ends up in tiny, little, MELTable flakes of goodness instead of massive, rock hard chunks. (Well, there was one big chunk that got caught on the blade, Reese got to eat that.)

Enjoy!

1 comment:

Carol said...

MMM, I want to try those, Sloan would go nuts! Well, maybe not nuts, cause she won't eat them! She'd be in chocolate heaven!