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!

The other day, I just had the urge to make a dessert I haven't made in a while (or one I've never done before.)  I had been thinking and reading about cookies all day.  I spent a good few hours looking at things about effects of different ingredients, flavors, and all the other sciency stuff about baking- cookies in specific.  I found a few good recipes that I want to try out, but nothing really stood out to me. 

mmm, tres leches

I was going to make tacos that night- nothing really fancy or time consuming, so I thought it would be nice to compliment the tacos with a mexican dessert.  What first popped into my mind was somehow making a tres leches cookie, but the more I thought about it, the more I didn't really want to experiment with something of that caliber so close to dinner time.  So, I further looked into Mexican desserts. Again, I found lots of delicious recipes, but the problem was, I either was missing some ingredient, or I knew my son wouldn't like it.

A lot of Mexican desserts use cinnamon and every time I came across that word, one recipe kept coming to mind.

Kana had mentioned almost a year ago how she loved these little cookies when she was younger.  She had even obtained the recipe from her sister and gave it to me.  The recipe had been sitting in my recipe box since then.  So, that night, I made Molasses Crinkles.

Little side story:  When I was a little kid, my family was having a Thanksgiving dinner at a friend's house.  My mother and her friend were making pumpkin pie.  When it was done, we tried it, it was bland.  They had forgotten the sugar.  I had made fun of her up until this point.  When I made these cookies, I forgot the sugar!  Luckily, I had enough dough left after the first batch that I could knead in some sugar and save the last batch of cookies.  They taste good now!  :-)

Ok, so how do you make these tasty little cookie balls?
What you need:
3/4 C    Cooking oil
1    C    Sugar
1/4 C    Dark molasses
1           Egg
2    Tsp Baking Soda
2    C    Sifted flour
1/2 Tsp Cloves
1/2 Tsp Ginger
1    Tsp Cinnamon
1/2 Tsp Salt

What you do:
Preheat oven to 350f.

Mix together your sugar, molasses, eggs and oil.  Beat well, then sift together your flour, baking soda, spices,
and salt.  Add to the first mixture.  Mix well.  Wrap dough in saran wrap and chill. 

Form 1-inch balls of the dough and then roll in loose sugar.  Place balls on a greased cookie sheet roughly 1-2
inches apart.

Bake for about 7-8 minutes.  The idea is to have the cookies be soft and chewy.  Let cool before
serving.

Ps.. Don't forget the sugar!