Proper Rice Crispy Brownies

  As I said on my personal facebook page, I guarantee a sugar rush on the first slice.  Now, despite that feeling, this cake is incredibly delicious.  I just recommend sharing it with an entire party and not a whole cake for two or three people.

  I've been wanting to try something like this for a long time.  Also, to be honest, the original plan was to not only have two layers of brownies with peanut butter cream icing and a casing of rice crispy treats, but to have the whole thing coated in a big homemade marshmallow.  But as I was going, my partner and I decided that that would be too much.  It's already a taste explosion as it is.   (Speaking of which, check this out!)

  You'll need to make three things.  First, the brownies.  Then, the icing, which you use to seal the two layers of the cake together and then coat the outside.  I used a modified version of Wilton's butter cream icing recipe.  Then, you encase the whole thing in a rice crispy treat.  I'll tell you how to do the whole thing.  First, with the brownies:

Chewy Fudge Brownies

What You Need:

1 Cup of butter (2 Sticks)

4 1oz squares of unsweetened chocolate

4 Large Eggs

A Dash of Salt

2 Cups of Sugar

1 Tsp Vanilla

1 Cup of Flour

What You Do:

Preheat oven to 350°f

 

1) Melt the butter over low heat in a small sauce pan.  Once butter is melted, add chocolate and stir constantly until melted. Be careful not to burn the chocolate. 

2) In a large bowl, whip your eggs until they are nice and frothy.  I like to use a hand mixer with the two beaters.  Beat for a few minutes and then add the sugar and salt.

3) Mix the melted chocolate and vanilla into eggs.  

4) Add flour, stir only until mixed.  Usually, when it comes to adding flour, I stir by hand.

5) Grease (or use Wilton's instant cake release) two round cake pans and evenly divide the brownie mix between the two. 

6) Bake for about 25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. (I start checking around 20 minutes in)

7)Let the brownies cool before you go popping them out.  In the meantime, you can start mixing up the peanut butter icing!

Peanut Butter Cream Icing

What You Need:

1/4 Cup of Vegetable Shortening

1/4 Cup of Softened Butter

1/2 Cup of Peanut Butter

1 1/2 Cup of Confectioner's Sugar

Milk

What You Do:

1) Cream together the shortening and butter.  

2) Mix in the peanut butter.

3) Gradually add powdered sugar.

4) Start adding milk, a tablespoon at a time while mixing until the icing has reached a nice spreadable consistancy.

5)  Once the brownies have cooled, you can pop them out of their pans and place one on top of the other with a nice layer of icing. Spread icing over the outside of the cake and then start making the Rice Crispy Treats.

Rice Crispy Treats

I probably don't need to explain how to make these, but since I took a picture, I may as well.

What You Need:

1 10oz Bag of marshmallows

5 cups of Rice Crispy cereal.

1/4 Cup of Butter (half a stick)

What You Do:

1)  Melt butter and marshmallows in a pan.

2)  Stir in the cereal.

3) If you were just going to make rice crispy treats, you can press the mix into a mold or a cake pan and allow to cool, but were going to encase our cake with the stuff.

I've found the easiest way to cover the cake with the rice crispy treat is to wait until the mix is just cool enough to bare (don't let it actually harden...act fast!) and use your hands.  Grab a blob and just mush it around until you've created a nice shell. If you have enough left over, and feel confident enough about your cake, you can use it for the bottom of the cake as well.

YAAAY! ENJOY!

February is a pretty awesome month for me.  Not only does it have Valentines Day, which is one of my favorite holidays because everything you want to buy comes out in pink (AND I LOVE PINK), but it's also the month when the two most precious people in my life were born.  Kana's is on the 5th and Caleb's is at the end.  I could have found more reasons to bake deliciousness during that month, but ultimately, I only made two.

The first was for Kana's birthday.  Unfortunately, that day turned out to be a rather rough day.  Things got delayed and I wasn't playing my A game at the time.  And, when it came time to decorate the cake, things became desperate.  I don't think it came out all that bad, but I really wish that I had done better for her.

Caleb helped.

I had wanted to do a red velvet cake, so I found this recipe at the food network webpage.  Fabulous Red Velvet Cake.  Funny thing is, when I wrote it down before working on it, I had somehow omitted half the ingredients on the list.  Instead of looking it up again, though, I made it up as I went along.  I actually came pretty close.  Either way, it came out really tasty! 

It was so good, Caleb even asked for that particular recipe for his own birthday.  That made me a little sad since almost every one of my own birthdays, I had had my mom's special sour cream coffee cake and I wanted to continue the tradition, but on well.  I'll still have that yummy coffee cake on my own birthdays!

Anyway, I did it on Caleb's birthday as well, only I changed the color and went all out on the decoration.  Next year, I'll do just as good on Kana's birthday.

Colored Velvet Cake

What you will need:

• 1 C Butter
• 2 C Sugar
• 2 Eggs
• 1 Tsp Cocoa Powder
• Food Coloring
• 2 1/2 C Cake Flour
• 1 Tsp Salt
• 1 C Buttermilk
• 2 Tbsp Vanilla
• 1 Tsp Baking Soda
• 1 Tsp Vinegar

What to do:

1. Preheat Oven to 325f

2. Cream together butter and sugar, then add the eggs.

3. In a separate bowl, mix together chocolate powder and food coloring.

4. Add chocolate mix to the butter and sugar.
 

5.  Sift together the flour and the salt, then add to the mixer, alternating by thirds.

7. Add vanilla, then fold in baking soda and vinegar by hand.

8. Pour batter into well greased pans and pop them into the oven.

9. Bake in the oven until a toothpick in the center comes out clean (about 30 min)

10.  Decorate however way you want! 

Hope you had fun Caleb!