It’s Fall and that means it’s time to bake savory biscuits and pastries. Scones are in a category all their own.
I first had this scone at Manresa Bread, a local bakery that makes some of the most outstanding sourdough breads and other yummy bakes. Unfortunately it is not always available, so I did some digging and found the recipe. I love to eat these with a bowl of soup or just on their own. The savory sharpness of the parm and the addition of kale and leeks makes me feel like I’m eating something healthy. These are light and fluffy, owing to the cake flour and the cream. Make sure not to over mix the dough. The chunks of butter also keep it from becoming “claggy” (British for thick and sticky).
KALE PARMESAN SCONES (from Manresa Bread)
2 Tablespoons olive oil
112 grams (~½ cup) sliced leek (the white part)
1 bunch Lacinato kale, ribs removed, and coarsely chopped
340 grams (2 ½ cups) cake flour
1 Tablespoon baking powder
2 teaspoons sugar
2 teaspoons salt
4 ounces (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut into ½ inch chunks
1 to 1 ½ cups of cream or milk
Grated parmesan
Instructions
Sauteé the leeks in 1 Tbsp. olive oil until they are soft, taking care not to let the leeks colour.
Remove from heat and put in a bowl to cool
Add the other Tbsp. of olive oil to the skillet and sautée the kale for about 3-4 minutes just until it begins to wilt
Remove from heat and put in a bowl to cool
Combine all the dry ingredients into the bowl of a standing mixer
Add the butter chunks and mix on low speed until the butter resembles pebbles
Add the kale and leeks, then the parmesan. Mix on low speed until just combined.
Add 1 cup of cream and mix on low just until the dough comes together. Add more cream if needed.
Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and form into a ball.
Then shape into a rectangle about one inch thick.
Cut into 12 triangles.
Place on a baking sheet and bake at 350 degrees for approximately 20 to 25 minutes until lightly golden on the top and bottom.
That was one serious hiatus–so long that I almost forgot I had a place to share my thoughts. My recipes. My life. So much has happened since my last post in May of 2020 like, um, a global pandemic that consumed all of us–it was like the person who walks into a crowd and sucks all the air out of the room. It took all my attention, my energy, my willpower away from the things I wanted to do. Instead, I buckled down and worked at my job that I ended up leaving after 3 years (that’s another story for another time). There were three trips back to Toronto/Muskoka in there, and another contract that wrapped up a few months ago. So guess what? Now I have time on my hands! (sort of)
And that means I’ve gone back to cooking and baking and ruminating about all the things I should be doing with my life. Like finding a paying gig.
In the meantime, here I am world! Writing about life with two kids at home and one away at university; life in Northern California; life with a senior dog; life as a perimenopausal woman–apparently the topic is all the rage and we can talk about it openly.
Here’s a small sample of all the things I’ve been up to in the kitchen:
Clockwise from top left: fresh figs ready to be turned into jam; date and oat energy bites; zucchini chocolate chip loaf; caprese salad with heirloom tomatoes, burrata and basil; a pair of chocolate babkas; a slice of eggplant parmesan lasagna
So as you can see I’ve found plenty of ways to keep myself busy, but I’m doing it alone. I’d like to make this into something I can with others. I don’t know–does anyone want to cook or bake with me??? It would be so much more fun to do this with someone.
Anyhow, nobody reads this blog so I can write whatever I like here. It may just become a place for the ramblings of a lonely middle-aged woman who seeks comfort in baking and cooking. So be it.
I would love to write more, but I’m tired. It’s late and I have to get some sleep.
If anyone ends up reading this, drop me a note and send me a cooking or baking challenge. I’m always up for a good challenge!
There is no question I’ve been doing a sh*! ton of baking in this house for the last two months. Thankfully I haven’t had a problem finding ingredients despite the run on household staples as we all went into State-ordered hibernation. I am still baffled by all the people who decided to take up baking (especially bread baking) when this pandemic forced all of us indoors. Why not knitting? Or drawing? Or guitar lessons?
Anyhow, I shouldn’t be poo pooing people’s ambitions to expand their culinary horizons. Baking is great. It’s cathartic and at the end of the activity, not only do you have a pile of dirty dishes to clean, but you also have something yummy and delicious to eat (hopefully).
One recipe that doesn’t require any yeast, is scones. My mom has been baking so many of these, I have this image of scores of scones tumbling out of her freezer as she opens the door. She calls all her baking “distractabaking.”
I found a great recipe for scones on the King Arthur Flour website and modified it with my own add-ins. I had some leeks that looked like they had only a few days left before being chucked so I saved them from a worse fate. I also had a chunk of Comte cheese that was growing a nice fuzzy green coat of mold, so I cut away all the mold and shredded what remained to add to the mixture. There was also some leftover cooked bacon and who doesn’t love bacon?
Scones originated in Ireland. There are so many variations (including how to pronounce the name–scON or scOHn?), I couldn’t possibly go into all the details. All I can tell you is that baking powder is the leavening agent used to make these rise. There are no eggs in this particular recipe, but some recipes do call for eggs.
You can switch up the add-ins to suit your own taste. I also like to make the kale parmesan version of these–a recipe that comes from Manresa Bread, which is a bakery in Campbell, California. Whatever you fancy–sweet or savoury–scones make a great snack or breakfast treat.
Bacon, Leek and Cheese Scones
2 cups all purpose unbleached flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon baking powder
2 teaspoons sugar
4 tablespoons cold unsalted butter
1 cup grated cheese of your choosing (the sharper the cheese, the more flavourful the scone IMO)
1/3 cup diced and sauteed wilted leeks
1 cup cooked bacon bits
3/4 cups heavy cream
Pre-heat your oven to 425 degrees.
Combine all the dry ingredients together with a whisk.
Add the butter, cut into small chunks, and cut into the dry ingredients with a pastry cutter until it appears crumbly.
Add the cheese, leeks and bacon and combine thoroughly.
Pour the cream over the mixture and combine until the dough comes together and appears ragged.
Pour the mixture out onto a floured surface and squeeze together into a ball. Form the dough into a flat round about 3/4 of an inch high and approximately 7 inches wide. Transfer to a lined baking sheet.
With a regular knife or a bench knife, cut the disk into eight equal triangles. You can pull them apart a bit before baking, or you can do what I do and wait to completely cut them until they finish baking.
Brush the dough with a bit of cream before baking. This helps them brown nicely.
Place on the middle rack in the oven and bake for about 25 minutes, or until they are browned on top.
Let them cool completely before serving. If there are leftovers (and that’s a big IF), place them in an air tight container in the fridge. They also freeze nicely. Pop them in the oven and reheat on low.
Homemade braided challah bread with everything seasoning
I have to hand it to my mother–she has, without fail, baked challah every Friday for years now. She took over after my Bubby–my grandmother–passed away. The entire family looks forward to her homemade bread, which are shaped into beautiful round boules of egg bread, often sprinkled with sesame seeds or dotted with sweet raisins inside. Usually there are not one, but two challahs on the table. We say the blessings over the candles, then the wine and finish with the bread. The loaf is sliced, passed around the table to the delight of guests big and small. It tastes delicious on its own, or as is often the case, used to dip into a bowl of piping hot chicken soup. If there are any leftovers, they make great french toast the next morning, or a hearty PB & J sandwich.
Challah is meant to be a ceremonial bread used for special occasions like the Sabbath (every Friday night for Jews) or weddings and Bar Mitzvahs. It is often braided, washed with egg and sprinkled with sesame or poppy seeds.
I looked up the origin of the bread on Wikipedia and discovered that the name refers to the act of separating a portion of the dough for “payment” or taxation to the high priests, who were known as the Kohens (the surname Cohen is the modern name for the descendants of these priests), before the dough was braided.
Whatever the reason was back in biblical times, challah remains a staple for Jewish households. The act of making challah, I find, is very comforting. Measuring, mixing and especially kneading the bread are a great way to stay in the present. It’s almost a form of meditation.
The recipe I am using comes from my Mom. She hand wrote it into a book full of recipes and her own illustrations back in 2006. I cherish this book so much and hope that I can write something similar for my three kids, minus the beautiful illustrations–I’ll leave that to her. My one piece of advice: be patient. You can’t rush good bread. Take the time to knead it (or use a food processor to cut the time by 8 minutes), and give it time to rise before you bake it. The smell in the house is heavenly, which is fitting, since challah is made to honour God and all the bounty he/she has provided. This Friday, take time to thank whatever power you believe in is keeping us safe during such uncertain times. I hope this bread brings you the kind of comfort it brings to me and my family.
Challah Bread
3/4 cup of water
1/3 cup of oil
2 Tablespoons + 1 teaspoon of sugar
1 teaspoon of salt
1 envelope OR 2 1/4 teaspoons of dry activated yeast
2 eggs
3 cups of flour (plus more for kneading)
1 egg for egg wash
sesame seeds, poppy seeds, raisins, everything seasoning for finishing the bread
Instructions
Heat the water and oil together, but not boiling (you can do this on the stovetop or in the microwave)
Add sugar and salt to the water and oil
Sprinkle the yeast on top of this mixture and gently stir–set aside
Measure 3 cups of flour into a large bowl
Beat two eggs and pour over flour
Water and yeast mixture should look foamy now; pour this mixture into the bowl with the flour and eggs.
*If you want to put raisins in your challah, now is the time to add them to your dough.
Mix all the ingredients until they come together
Sprinkle flour onto a tea towel
Pour the dough out onto the tea towel and knead the dough for 8 to 10 minutes, until it is no longer sticky and becomes elastic-y.
*If using a food processor, knead for two minutes in the machine.
Let the dough rest for 10 minutes.
While the dough is resting, line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.
*HINT: if you don’t want the bottom of the bread to burn while baking, double up your baking sheets, or if you have a baking stone, use that!
Next step is to shape the dough: I like to braid it like a hair braid: divide your dough into three even pieces–if you want to be precise, use a kitchen scale. Roll out each piece into a long strand. Press all three strands together at one end and start braiding. When you get to the end, tuck it underneath the braid. Put your challah on your baking sheet and cover it with your tea towel. Leave the challah to rise for approximately 1 hour, or until it is nearly double in size.
Preheat your oven to 375 degrees . While it’s heating up beat an egg and add a dash of water to it. Use this for the egg wash on the challah. Sprinkle with the seeds or seasoning of your choice.
Bake for approximately 30 minutes. If you find the exterior of your challah is browning too quickly, you can always tent it with tin foil, or lower the temperature on your oven by 10 or 15 degrees.
You can also check the internal temperature of your challah before removing it with an oven thermometer, which should read 190 degrees.
Remove from oven and cool in the pan covered with a tea towel.
Remember when we were allowed to wander freely, casually stopping in at a local coffee shop for a hot drink, a bookstore to browse the new releases or a bakery to grab a yummy treat? Wait! That was just last week, right?
I used to indulge in two treats at Manresa Bread, usually on a Sunday when I was visiting the Campbell Farmers’ Market. I could justify the astronomical price for their wholewheat chocolate walnut cookie or their kale parm scone because I rarely indulge (I normally bake everything myself). Now that I won’t, ney CAN’T attend the farmers’ market, and also because I felt guilty dropping that kind of coin on a cookie or scone, I am baking these at home for ALL to enjoy. And now you can too! The recipe for these scones was originally published in the San Francisco Chronicle when they did a feature on Manresa’s head baker, Stephanie Prida.
The recipe calls for cake flour and cream. If you don’t have those ingredients, the recipe works just as well with all purpose flour and milk. It also calls for one bunch of lacinato kale. I don’t know what that is. And neither do you. But if you do, great! If you don’t, just use whatever kale you have access to. If you don’t have any kale, you can also substitute it with another green, like spinach or chard–just make sure you wring out any excess water from your leafy green or the scones will be soggy. Another substitution might be the leeks. If you don’t have any, try shallots or onions. Given the restrictions of our movements out in public these days, you might not be able to or want to run out to the supermarket to grab everything you need for these scones, so just improvise.
Kale Parmesan Scone Recipe from Manresa Bread
2 Tablespoons olive oil
112 grams (~½ cup) sliced leek (the white part)
1 bunch Lacinato kale, ribs removed, and coarsely chopped
340 grams (2 ½ cups) cake flour
1 Tablespoon baking powder
2 teaspoons sugar
2 teaspoons salt
4 ounces (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut into ½ inch chunks
1 to 1 ½ cups of cream or milk
Grated parmesan (~1/2 a cup)
Instructions
Sautee the leeks in 1 Tbsp. olive oil until they are soft, taking care not to let the leeks colour.
Remove from heat and put in a bowl to cool
Add the other Tbsp. of olive oil to the skillet and sautée the kale for about 3-4 minutes just until it begins to wilt
Remove from heat and put in a bowl to cool
Combine all the dry ingredients into the bowl of a standing mixer
Add the butter chunks and mix on low speed until the butter resembles pebbles
Add the kale and leeks, then the parmesan. Mix on low speed until just combined.
Add 1 cup of cream and mix on low just until the dough comes together. Add more cream if needed.
Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and form into a ball.
Then shape into a rectangle about one inch thick.
Cut into 12 triangles.
Place on a baking sheet and bake at 350 degrees for approximately 20 to 25 minutes until lightly golden on the top and bottom.
Dorin’s modifications:
I use milk instead of cream
There are no measurements for the parmesan so I put in about 1/2 a cup of loosely packed grated parmesan. It depends on how cheesy you like your scones
I have made these without the leeks when I haven’t had them
I have added raw kale to the dough and it still tasted great
Tis the season for citrus fruit in California. Everywhere I look on my travels, I see orange, lemon, lime and grapefruit trees bursting with ripening fruit. I don’t have any fruit trees on my property, but my former neighbour does. She has a Meyer lemon tree that is exploding with fruit. She asked me if I would take some since she can’t possible use all the fruit her tree bears. How could I say no? Now I have a large bowl of lemons to use.
When I said lots of lemons, I meant LOTS of lemons!
My first order of business was to make a batch of lemon bars for a holiday party. I particularly like lemon bars because of the fresh, acidic citrus flavour, combined with the shortbread base. I don’t consider this recipe particularly difficult. It’s only the juicing and the zesting that take a bit of time.
Zesting and juicing fresh lemons takes time, but it’s worth it
I tried to do a bit of digging on the history of the lemon bar or square. There is a general consensus that lemon curd was created during the Renaissance and that shortbread followed thereafter. But the combination of shortbread with a layer of lemon curd baked on top did not surface until the early 1960’s when a recipe for the bars appeared in a Chicago newspaper. From the day on, lemon bars grew in popularity.
Combine all the wet ingredients, including the lemon zest
Nowadays you can find them in bakeries, patisseries and served during holidays and special occasions. If you like lemon desserts as much as I do, these will become a staple in your repertoire of desserts.
The acid freshness of the lemon curd cuts the richness of the shortbread crust
In keeping with the holiday spirit, I am baking sweets traditionally associated with this time of the year. Shortbread is an iconic biscuit (as they say in the UK for cookie) commonly associated with Christmastime.
The cookie was “invented” in Scotland all the way back in the 12th century. It was often twice baked until it hardened into a rusk, then dusted with sugar and spices. But the biscuit became more popular during the reign of Mary Queen of Scots during the 16th century, when it was often baked for family celebrations and holidays like Christmas.
The term shortbread comes from the fat or shortening used in the recipe–in this instance butter (and lots of it!) and the short crumb or crumbly consistency on the biscuit.
That’s a pound of butter
Most traditional recipes call for the dough to be pressed into the pan, pricked with fork tines and cut into wedges or rectangular biscuits after baking. I follow a recipe that is more like a drop cookie. And I like to change it up a bit and add some additional richness to the already rich dough.
Shortbread is a 1-2-3 cookie; one part sugar (this can be a combination of granulated sugar and icing sugar), two parts butter and three parts flour. My recipe also calls for cornstarch, which is supposed to soften the proteins in the flour. As such, the texture of my shortbread cookies is so crumbly, the cookie practically melts in your mouth.
I use granulated sugar, icing sugar and cornstarch
Shortbread diehards would probably object to the use of cornstarch in the recipe, but I have had great success with this recipe so I’m not going to mess with it.
I like to add chocolate to my recipe so I take a Toblerone bar, which has delicious milk chocolate and nougat in it, and chop it up into small chunks before adding it into the dough.
Mmm! Toblerone
I use a small 1/2 inch cookie scoop to form balls and bake them for approximately 15 minutes.
Half-inch cookies are just the right size
There should be NO browning on the cookie. If it browns, it’s been in the oven too long.
Shortbreads are subtly sweet and deeply rich. They are a perfect companion to a cup of tea or a hot toddy. And they most certainly make a great addition to your dessert table–or even a great gift at the holidays.
These cookies are very crumbly, and very rich
Shortbread Cookies with Toblerone Chunks
1 pound unsalted butter, softened
1 Cup Icing Sugar
3 Cups All Purpose Flour
1/2 Cup Cornstarch
1 Tsp Vanilla extract
1 Toblerone chocolate bar, chopped into small chunks
Directions:
Beat the butter, icing sugar, flour and cornstarch until fluffy. add splash of vanilla and combine. Sprinkle chocolate chunks into batter and mix until just combined. Spoon onto a baking sheet and bake for 15 minutes at 350 degrees–make sure the cookies do not brown! The cookies will still be soft when you remove them from the oven. Place them on a rack to cook.
It’s holiday season and you know what that means: BAKING!!!
My oven is still misbehaving (don’t ask), but I have managed to whip up some cookies without too much difficulty, although a properly heated oven would mean more predictable bakes.
Nevertheless, my desire to bake has outweighed my patience for the oven to be repaired.
I dug through my recipe box and found this lovely recipe, brought to you by Bonnie Stern. It appeared in the Weekend Post back in 2006 and I’ve held on to it since then. My girlfriend, Katie, was the one who shared it with me. She was trying to find ways to get more iron into her son’s diet. This recipe calls for molasses, which is quite high in iron. It also calls for whole wheat flour or nutri flour, which is a blend of unbleached flour with the bran added back in, so it bakes like an all purpose flour. I didn’t have either of these so I just used all purpose flour, but that means these cookies aren’t quite as nutritious as the recipe says they could be. I’ll leave it up to you to decide.
A mixture of melted butter, sugar, eggs and black strap molasses
You may be in a rush to make the dough and immediately bake the cookies, but the instructions call for chilling the dough for at least an hour. Don’t skip this step. It gives the melted butter the chance to solidify into the dough. It then becomes much easier to form the dough into balls so that when the cookies bake, they come out perfectly shaped with a nice crackle.
Chill the cookie dough: don’t skip this step!
I roll the dough in turbinado sugar, which gives the cookies a nice finish.
Roll the cookie dough balls in turbinado sugar
Enjoy these with a glass of egg nog, milk or a hot toddy….they have a nice flavour of molasses, cinnamon and ginger, perfect for chilly winter nights!
Ginger molasses crackle cookies fresh out of the oven
Ginger Molasses Crackle Cookies
2/3 Cup of melted butter or vegetable oil (I use butter)
1 Cup granulated sugar
1 egg
1/4 Cup molasses
2 Cups flour (preferably whole wheat or nutri blend)
2 Tsp ground ginger
1 Tsp cinnamon
1 Tsp baking powder
1 Tsp baking soda
1/4 Tsp salt
1/2 Cup of coarse sugar for dipping (eg. turbinado sugar)
In large bowl, combine butter with sugar. Beat in egg and molasses.
Mix or sift flour with remaining dry ingredients.
Refrigerate for at least 1 hour.
Shape dough into 1 Tbsp balls and roll in coarse sugar. Place on baking sheet lined with parchment paper and press down lightly. Leave enough space for other cookies.
Bake in a 350F preheated oven for approximately 10 minutes until crackle-looking but still soft in the centre. Let cool before transferring to a wire rack.
As previously mentioned, my brand-spanking new oven isn’t working. It hasn’t since we got it over a MONTH ago.
At first I thought maybe it was me. Maybe we had to become better acquainted with each other. After a few called to customer service, I was persuaded to try troubleshooting the problem before the company sent out a repair person. Well, after tinkering with the oven for a week and told the company it just wasn’t working.
The repairman who came turned out to be the most misogynistic piece of garbage I have ever met. I can’t recall a time in recent memory when a man was so overtly demeaning to me. I was so upset and called the company to complain. My oven was still broken, requiring a new part. I made it clear that repair man was not allowed anywhere near the premises. The new part was ordered and sent. A new repair company was retained and they have yet to show up to fix the oven. I am non-plussed. Actually, I am more than non-plussed. I am angry, disappointed, frustrated and I also feel helpless. I don’t like feeling like I am at the mercy of a company that took my money and delivered a substandard product and beyond crappy customer service.
To make myself feel better, I went on a road trip today with a friend of mine. We were on a mission. If I couldn’t bake in my own kitchen, I was going to live vicariously through the small country bake shops in farm country. We drove north to Sonoma County.
Our first stop was Mom’s Apple Pie in Sebastopol. It’s been around since 1984. In my head I was thinking, “oh! that’s not so long ago. I was just a kid then.” But then I remembered I’m getting old. That means the pie shop has been around for 35 years! THIRTY FIVE YEARS!!! We ordered ahead of time because it happens to be the week of Thanksgiving and we would have been sorely disappointed with the selection of pies if we had simply shown up. I got two kinds; strawberry rhubarb and apricot.
I did not get their namesake pie because I intend to bake an apple pie of my own. I also tried a mixed berry turnover while I was there, which was delicious. It was especially yummy because my stomach was growling after the two hour drive.
That’s Apricot on the left and Strawberry Rhubarb on the right. But who can tell?
After leaving Mom’s we headed to Hale’s Orchard and picked up a bunch of blemished apples, which they refer to as “seconds.” I call them C-grade apples, which aren’t nice enough to sell in a grocery store, but certainly tasty enough and useful enough to turn into apple sauce or pies. So I bought 25 pounds. Normally I would get one variety, but since I don’t know anything about the varieties that are grown out here, I heeded the advice of the nice woman at the fruit stand and bought a variety. She said the best sauces and pies come from a mixture of apples.
A variety of C grade apples from Sonoma County
From Hale’s we made a pit stop at Andy’s market, an independent grocery store that has wonderful produce, a great selection of meats and cheeses and lots of great bulk food.
But we saved the best for last! We went to Wild Flour Bakery in Freestone. The *main* street, if you could call it that, is a small unassuming road off the main highway that you would miss altogether if you blinked. There are a few shops clustered together, but that’s it.
We went just days before US Thanksgiving so it was busier than normal, according to my travel companion, Elizabeth, who frequents this bakery quite regularly. The breads and bakes are outstanding!!! I got three loaves–a Fougasse that was stuffed with cheese, herbs and tomato. I got another flat bread, also stuffed with cheese and herbs, as well as a garlic loaf.
Beautiful breads from Wild Flour Bakery
I also got two scones; one sweet, the other savoury. Both were delicious, especially the chocolate walnut. Yum!
If you are in the area, these places are definitely worth checking out.
I haven’t been baking that much these days because my new oven is misbehaving. I’ve attempted to recalibrate the temperature but I can’t seem to get it right yet. My bakes are either getting burned on top and stay raw in the middle, or they stay limp and anemic looking. But today I decided to make a batch of brownies because I was in the mood for something chocolatey. I was prepared to take my chances for the sake of a craving.
This brownie recipe comes from the back of the package of cocoa–no secret ingredients, just good quality cocoa. But not just any cocoa; Dutch processed cocoa. Whenever I hear this term, I picture little blonde people in wooden clogs running cocoa beans through a stone grinder underneath a traditional windmill. It’s really a chemical process that was, in fact, developed by a Dutch man by the name of Coenraad Johannes van Houten back in the 19th century. Dutch processed cocoa is made with an alkalizing agent and it is supposed to be less acidic than naturally processed cocoa. So if you’re recipe calls for baking soda (also known as a leavening agent) to help your bake rise, it will need to react with something acidic like yogurt or buttermilk, because the cocoa powder has a neutral pH and won’t do anything to help those cookies, squares or cakes rise.
The colour of Dutch processes baking power is also darker than natural cocoa powder and is supposed to have a milder flavour.
The fudgey brownie batter
However these brownies are far from mild. They are fudge-y and rich and full of chocolatey flavour. They are full of butter, sugar, eggs and lots of cocoa. They are dead simple to make (no special folding whipping, resting or anything). The trick is making sure you take them out of the oven before they get over baked. Baking with chocolate means you can’t tell when your bake is done because it doesn’t really change colour the way a blonde batter would.
Pour the batter into a 9x 13 pan lined with parchment paper
I took these out after 25 minutes in the oven. Given that my oven is acting up, I probably could have taken them out after 20-ish minutes, but the recipe called for 30 minutes and I reduced it by 5.
I make these even more decadent by slathering on a generous helping of milk chocolate icing. For fun I put some chocolate sprinkles on (they look like baby Smarties). These go great with a cup of tea or a tall glass of cold milk. Or you could just gobble it up sans beverage.
Rodelle Gooey Fudge Brownies
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a 9 x 13 inch pan with a parchment paper and spray lightly with cooking spray.
Ingredients:
1 Cup + 2 Tbsp unsalted butter
2 1/4 Cups sugar
5 eggs
1/2 Tbsp vanilla extract
3/4 Cup + 1 Tbsp flour
3/4 Cup + 1 Tbsp Dutch processed cocoa powder
1/4 Tbsp salt (I omitted this)
1/2 Cup semisweet chocolate chips (I upped this to 1 Cup)
3/4 Cup chopped nuts (I omitted this)
Directions:
Melt the butter and sugar together in a mixing bowl and let cool slightly. Add eggs one at a time, mixing well between each addition. Add the vanilla and mix. Sift the dry ingredients together then combine with wet ingredients until just incorporated. Add chipits and nuts, mix and then pour into the pan. Bake until just firm (maximum 35 minutes). Let them cool completely before removing from the pan and cutting into squares. Enjoy!
