Brown Butter Blondies With Brown Sugar

Brownies are incredibly popular and SO easy to make, I don't know of anyone who doesn't know what a brownie is, or how delicious they are.

However, I hadn't heard of blondies until I became addicted to baking blogs in 2009, while I was living in England with lots of time to kill during cold wintery days. Turns out they are pretty tasty as well.
This particular blondie uses brown butter, or basically butter which has been simmered in a pan until it turns golden in colour. It adds a slightly deeper taste to the blondies and really works well with the brown sugar in this recipe.

The best bit about these is that the mix ins can be easily changed to your preference. I'm not a nut love but I'm sure macadamias and white chocolate would be amazing!

Just out of the oven - perfect.

 Check out the chunks of white chocolate. Yum.

Brown Butter Blondies with Brown Sugar
From: Chocolatesuze
Ingredients
200g unsalted butter
1 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon bi-carb soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup plain flour
Add ins, such as choc chips, nuts etc. I used roughly 1/2 cup each of white chocolate and caramel choc chips.

Method
- Preheat oven to 175 degrees celcius, grease and line a slice tin or brownie pan.
- Cube butter. Melt in a saucepan over medium heat, swirling in the pan. When the butter turns a golden colour, remove from the heat.
- Add butter to the brown sugar in a bowl and beat together.
- Add egg and vanilla, mix.
- Sift flour, baking powder, bi-carb and salt and stir into butter mixture until just combined.
- Stir through your mix-ins.
- Cook for 15-20 mins. Will still be a little bit wobbly in the middle when done.
- Remove from oven, cool completely in tin before removing and slicing.

Let me know how yours were, which mix-ins worked well for you?

Triple Chocolate Muffins

It's my last day on the couch relaxing before going back to work tomorrow. I had an order to post so thought I'd head to the shops while I was out - and came across the new Nestle Caramel Chocolate Bits. This was a little too exciting for me as a caramel lover, so naturally I came home with a bag of them. As I'm still in lazy couch potato mode, I thought I'd try them out with an easy favourite, Triple Chocolate Muffins.

This recipe is SO easy, but extremely yum. The vegetable oil serves to make them nice and moist, and buttermilk is always a star ingredient in any baked good!

Sift flour and cocoa, add sugar and choc bits in a bowl.

 Put eggs, oil and buttermilk in a jug.

 Mix them together!

I use a regular cupcake tin rather than a muffin pan as the muffins are so rich, I feel that muffin sized they'd be a little too much. Ready to go in the oven!

Out of the oven 20 minutes later, looking good enough to eat already..

 But adding a white chocolate melt to the top makes them that little more impressive to look at, and you can never have too much chocolate in a triple choc muffin anyway!

All melted 2 mins later and looking good!

Triple Choc Muffins - from Women's Weekly Easy Baking
Makes 12 (I got 20 by using a regular cupcake tin)
Ingredients
1 3/4 cups self raising flour
1/3 cup cocoa powder
3/4 brown sugar, firmly packed
1/2 cup dark choc bits (I used milk chocolate chips)
1/2 cup white choc bits (I used caramel chips)
2 eggs
1 cup buttermilk
2/3 cup vegetable oil
White chocolate melts, for decoration

Method
1. Preheat oven to 200c. Line 12-hole muffin tin with paper cases.
2. Sift flous and cocoa into large bowl, stir in sugar and choc bits. Stir in combined eggs, buttermilk and oil. Do not over mix, mixture should be lumpy.
3. Divide mixture into paper cases. Bake muffins 20 minutes, remove from oven. Top each muffin with a white chocolate melt, return to oven and bake a further 2 minutes.
4. Stand muffins in pan 5 minutes before removing to cool fully on wire rack.

Caramel Slice

Okay, so I've been incredibly slack this year. I have come to the conclusion that whilst I love my crafting, there's only so much I can write about it - and if I'm bored, you will be too!
As I've mentioned before, I absolutely love to cook and bake, trying different recipes out and sharing the results with my friends and family. So this blog is being morphed into something along those lines. I'm joining the ranks of the baking bloggers.
Stick with me! I'd love for people to try out the recipes I post and tell me what they think, maybe you have a better one to suggest!

To start off my new bloggy direction, an old favourite of mine - Caramel Slice!!

 

This has been my favourite bakery sweet for many many years. Whenever I go to a bakery for lunch, you can guarantee I'll buy a piece of caramel slice to eat later on. No more of that though, as I've found the best recipe yet and I can make it myself!

The recipe I was using before only used one can of condensed milk in the caramel, so as a caramel lover you can imagine I was excited when I spotted this recipe in a book that was part of a promotion for condensed milk - it has 2 cans in it! Extra caramel goodness. YUM.

Here goes!

To start with, grease and line a slice tray with baking paper.
It helps if you snip the corners to make the paper sit perfectly in the tray.

The base is a simple mix of flour, coconut and brown sugar with melted butter.
Press it into the pan, bake and let cool.

Making the caramel is so simple - butter, condensed milk and golden syrup in a medium saucepan.. 

Stir over low heat until smooth!

 Pour the mixture over the cooled base and bake for 20-25 minutes until nicely browned like this

  And wait forever (or so it seemed) until it's cool - I passed the time by making Mushroom Risotto (post to come!) and an earring order for a lovely coworker.

 

The last bit it even easier. Just melt 200g of dark chocolate (I used a block of milk baking chocolate from Aldi as I prefer mik) and add a tablespoon of vegetable oil. I like this because my old recipe called for copha, which I would always have to go out and buy. We always have vegetable oil!
Pour over the base, and put into the fridge until set. Cut into squares and try not to eat the whole thing yourself!

Best-Ever Caramel Slice - from Nestle's Condensed Milk's "100 Years Of Sweet Baking Memories"

Ingredients

1 cup plain flour

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup desiccated coconut

125g butter, melted

100g butter, extra

2x395g tins sweetened condensed milk

1/3 cup golden syrup

200g dark baking chocolate, melted

1tbsp vegetable oil

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180c. Lightly grease an 18x28cm slice pan and line with baking paper.

2 In a medium bowl, combine flour, sugar and coconut and mix together. Add 125g melted butter and mix well. Press firmly into prepared pan, bake 15-20 minutes until lightly browned. Cool.

3. Place extra 100g butter, golden syrup and condensed milk into medium saucepan. Stir over low heat until smooth. Pour over base. Bake 20-25 minutes until golden. Cool.

4, Combine melted chocolate an vegetable oil, stir until smooth. Pour evenly over cooled slice. Refridgerate until set. Cut into squares - using a warmed knife reduces the risk of the chocolate cracking whilst slicing.

Have you tried this recipe? Do you have a better one? Leave a comment and tell me!