Spiced Chocolate Brownies

In sheer excitement over my new found gluten free baking journey, I think I may have overdone it on stocking.  As I said before, as soon as I accepted the challenge, I ordered about 20lbs of different types of flours from Vitacost.com.  When they were delivered to my door, the cardboard box was a little disheveled and when you opened it, all of my flours were in individually packaged "bricks" stacked together.  As I unloaded my flours, my husband joked that it looked like (what he would imagine to be) a drug shipment.  We still laugh about this "delivery."  About two days after, I found the Namaste GF flour blend at Costco which I ended up loving and buying 4 bags of.  At this point, you'd think my pantry would be well-stocked, if not overly-stocked.  Well, let's not stop there.  Over a month ago, I was visiting my sister in California and I decided to stock up on bags of almond meal from Trader Joe's.  At this point, Austin's new TJ store had yet to open, so I wanted to make sure I had almond meal a plenty to get me through to the opening.

Little known fact though, I'd never used almond meal before so I'm not entirely sure why I thought I needed so much of it.  In any case, I had opened one bag to get a feel for texture, etc, and after a month of being in the fridge decided I'd better use it.  Insert Foodgawker search for almond meal recipes here.

This recipe was to showcase a specific brand of molasses.  I did not use that brand, I used what I had.  It also said to bake pan brownie-style, but I liked the idea of individual bites.   

These brownie bites taste a little bit like a mixture between a cake-y brownie or dense cake.  Take your pick.  Then I dressed them up with a shot of cinnamon chocolate buttercream and they were delicious!

I kind of want to experiment with the spices a little more.  Maybe add cloves and nutmeg?  More gingerbread style?

I basically followed this recipe that I found on Foodgawker with a few changes you can see below. Enjoy!

Mini-Spiced Chocolate Brownies
1 cup almond meal
1 cup sugar
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp cinnamon
3 tbsp cocoa powder
4 tbsp flour (I used Namaste GF blend)
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
3 tbsp molasses
4 eggs

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line mini-muffin pan and fill liners 2/3 full.  Bake for 10 minutes. Allow to cool then frost.

Spiced Chocolate Buttercream
1 stick butter, softened
3 cups powdered sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla extract
1-2 tbsp milk

Cream sugar and powdered sugar until smooth.  Add cinnamon and vanilla extract. Add 1 tbsp milk at a time and whip until desired consistency.

Choco-what?

Happy Friday, everyone!  I have no special reason to make this recipe, no special event, no requests my friends or family, this was purely a "I'm bored at work home and browsing blogs and stumbled upon this fabulous looking recipe."  You know, one of those. 

I've said it before and I'll say it again, I love cookie dough, way better than the actual baked cookies.  So when I read the title for this recipe, Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Brownies, I said to myself "Choco-what?" (Say it like the "Milka-what" commercial).  Not only that, but the picture looked like a brownie topped with a massive amount of chocolate chip cookie dough.  Yes, please.

Chocolate chip cookie dough (sans the eggs so you can eat them without fear of Salmonella) on top of a very chewy, chocolately brownie, with a drizzle of more chocolate.  These are good. Real good. 

The only thing that would make these better....is if they were served warm and gooey.  The recipe says to keep them refrigerated until ready to serve (because of the cookie dough), but I have every right mind to microwave one of these bad boys next time.  I guess that would negate the "dough" part though.  Whatev.

Until I get a fancy-schmancy camera for my birthday/wedding anniversary/Christmas present (ahem, hubs), this is as close as my little point and shoot will go.  

Lori said they were best served and presented in cupcake wrappers and I couldn't agree more.  I like her style.

Have a great weekend!

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Brownies

adapted from RecipeGirl

Brownie:

4 oz unsweetened chocolate

1 cup butter, room temp

2 cups packed light brown sugar

4 large eggs

2 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup AP flour

Cookie Dough:

3/4 cup butter

3/4 cup packed light brown sugar

3/4 cup white sugar

1 tbsp vanilla extract

3 tbsp milk

1 1/2 cup AP flour

1/2 tsp salt

 1 1/2 cup mini-chocolate chips

Drizzzzle:

1/2 cup mini-chocolate chips

1 tsp shortening

1.  Preheat oven to 325 degrees.  In separate bowl, begin to melt chocolate in 30 second increments.  Careful not to burn.  Set aside to cool.  In mixer, beat butter and sugar until fluffy.  Add in eggs and vanilla.  Fold in flour just until mixed.  Pour in greased 9x13 pan and bake for 25-35*minutes.  Remove when toothpick comes out clean.

2.  While brownies cool, prepare cookie dough.  Beat sugars and butter in mixer.  Add vanilla and milk.  Combine flour and salt and add to sugar/butter mixture.  Fold in chocolate chips.  

3.  When brownies are cool, spread the cookie dough over the brownies and put in refrigerator (or freezer) until cold.  Slice into individual squares and place in cupcake wrappers.  

4.  Melt reserved chocolate chips and shortening.  Place in ziploc bag and snip a corner off.  Drizzle on individual brownies.  Refrigerate until ready to serve. 

*Mine took 35 minutes