Brownie Spontaneity

I had a friend call me the other day wanting to hang out later that night. Well I had no snacks to offer, was too lazy to drive to the grocery store,   and needed to whip up something quickly.  A favorite cookbook of my mother’s is Cotton Country Cooking. I found my copy of it and found a recipe called “Quick Delicious Brownies”. I happened to have all the ingredients,  looked in the fridge and had exactly the amount of eggs needed. The brownies were great, I would have preferred them to be a little more on the chocolaty side but they were still good. After they came out of the oven I sprinkled some semi-sweet chocolate chips, let them melt and then spread them on the brownies for icing. Everyone enjoyed them.They did not even have time to cool!  It was my roommates first experience with homemade brownies from scratch! 

“Quick Delicious Brownies” from Cotton Country Cooking

1/2 cup butter

1 cup sugar

4 tablespoon cocoa

2 eggs

1 cup flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

pinch salt

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 cup nuts, if desired

Melt butter in medium sauce pan. Add sugar and cocoa. Mix thoroughly. Remove pan from heat, then add remaining ingredients, spread batter in a greased and floured 9×9 pan. Bake at 350 for 25 to 30 minutes. Makes 2 dozen 1 1/2 inch squares.

Bananaberry Muffins

I love bananas, unfortunately I could not eat my bunch of bananas fast enough and therefore had to find a use for those lovely overly brown mushy bananas. The only solution was BANANA BREAD! I had just been to the grocery store and bought a huge bag of frozen blueberries and thought…why not through some into the mix? I am the type of person who wants a blueberry in every bit of my bread so I loaded up those muffins with blueberries. Haha and when using frozen blueberries the juice is bound to mix in with the batter and my muffins came out a lovely purplish tint. I am just now to the point of experimenting with my cooking and this was a big step for me to venture outside of the safety of a recipe. It was quite a success and I enjoyed these muffins with two good friends on a sunny Saturday morning. I highly suggest adding blueberries into your banana muffin mix next time! My recipe was simple and I just folded the blueberries into the batter after adding the last ingredients. My recipe came from oh, my babycakes!

Oh, my Nana Banana Bread!

INGREDIENTS

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 to 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1/2 cup butter, softened (1 stick)
• 1 cup brown sugar or 1 1/2 cups white granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs, beaten
• 4 medium-sized overripe bananas, mashed

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease a 9×5 inch loaf pan with butter or baking spray.
2. In a large bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt. In a separate bowl, cream together butter and sugar. Stir in eggs and mashed bananas until well blended. Add cinnamon and vanilla extract. Stir banana mixture into flour mixture; stir just to moisten. Pour batter into prepared loaf pan. Any excess batter can be poured into muffin or mini-muffin pan.
3. Bake loaf pan in preheated oven for 60 to 65 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center of the loaf comes out clean. Muffins will be done after 20 to 30 minutes and mini-muffins after 12 to 15 minutes, depending on size. Let bread cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack.

Homemade Reese's PB Cups :)

Wow, first time blogging… I am so excited yet a little intimidated by all the amazing blogs out there. I will certainly be working on getting better at this. I have only in the past year discovered my love for Food Blogs and have been debating on starting one. Finally, I wound up the courage to make one and found out how incredibly easy it is to make a blog!  So here it is.

I have always enjoyed the combo of Peanut Butter & Chocolate (preferably milk chocolate) When I saw this recipe I knew it was meant for me to try. Honestly, I cannot help but make a mess in the kitchen and this recipe was anything but neat. Chocolate was everywhere ( just a warning). So maybe there is a neater way to make these delicious treats but I had just as much fun making them… and the finished product was definitely better than expected! Such a success and the pictures are not half bad either. I found the recipe from from the wonderful blog Have Cake Will Travel

Enjoy! 

Peanut Butter Cups

12 mini cupcake liners
3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup creamy natural peanut butter + 2 generous T to add to the melted chocolate
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1/2 t pure vanilla extract
pinch fine sea salt [if your PB is already salted, it’s optional to add more]

melt the chips in your microwave, keeping a close eye on them and stirring often to make sure they don’t burn. it should take between 1-2 minutes. add the 2 generous T and stir to incorporate.
give it about 5 minutes to cool down a bit, it’s easier to spread around when not lava-hot.

place a heaping teaspoon of melted chocolate in each mini cupcake liner and spread it all over the place with the back of a spoon. repeat with all 12 liners.

place the chocolate-covered liners onto a plate, into your fridge, to let it all harden.

meanwhile, stir together peanut butter, vanilla, salt, and sugar. if your peanut butter is anything like mine, it should form a sort of paste that you can start kneading to make sure all gets incorporated really well.

the chocolate should be hard by now, so divide peanut butter paste into all 12 liners, pressing down gently to make sure the paste goes everywhere.

top with heaping teaspoon of chocolate [melt it again if needed], spreading carefully so that none of the PB paste can be seen.

chill in fridge for at least one hour, until ready to devour.

yield: 12 “small” cups