Brownies for Julia -- Tuesdays with Dorie

The treat of the week for TWD? Brownies! Specifically Rick Katz’s Brownies for Julia, picked for us to try by Tanya of Chocolatechic, thank you Tanya! Be sure to check out her blog for the recipe and lots of other reasons to smile.

I loved the little back story about Rick Katz in the preface to the recipe, and was really excited to try his brownie technique, which requires some whipping of the eggs and sugar to equal some extra decadent ooey gooey brownies.


Lots of talk on the P&Q about adding extra time, using a different pan size, etc. I was planning to follow the recipe exactly, intrigued at Dorie's suggestion to use a 9 by 9 glass Pyrex baking dish for these instead of the metal pan lined with tin foil that I'm used to for brownies. I got out my one small square glass baking dish (seems like I have at least ten rectangular glass dishes, but only one square) and read the measurements on the bottom -- 8 by 8! I was nervous when I saw the amount of brownie batter than was I thought I might get away with in my pan that was a size smaller than called for, so I made a last minute decision to get out a 9 by 13 glass dish. I figured I'd end up with thinner brownies but would not run the risk of overflow while baking.

I checked the brownies at 25 minutes, minimum baking time suggested, added the additional 3 minutes taking us up to 28, check again, and they still looked underdone. I added another five minutes, bringing us to 33 (if I can still add correctly :) ) and I figured I'd pull them since they *should* be done at this point. After cooling for only ten minutes or so I spooned out a little corner piece and wow, what an intense chocolate flavor. My first thought was, this is brownie pudding cake! They did firm up a bit after cooling for an hour or so, I cut one for the kids and added a little whipped cream and sprinkles, they loved these! My four year old said these were the best brownies ever. The rest are sitting in the refrigerator uncut, but I'm thinking these are best served warmed up and with some whipped cream (or ice cream) and a spoon...mmm, brownie bowl!

Lemon Linguine -- I Heart Cooking Clubs

This is my first time cooking with I Heart Cooking Clubs, a weekly cooking club spin-off of Tyler Florence Fridays (which has sadly ended) that picks a celebrity chef and cooks their recipes to go along with a weekly theme. I Heart Cooking Clubs has been cooking Nigella Lawson recipes for the past 6 months or so and I'm really excited to finally jump in! I've spent lots of time browsing Nigella's recipes on foodnetwork and Nigella's site ever since I Heart Cooking Clubs started and many caught my eye but this was the first one I actually had time to try to go along with the weekly theme.

You can find the recipe for Nigella's Lemon Linguine here at the foodnetwork site, I did change it up a bit, I left out the egg yolks and also used double the amount of sauce for the pasta (the original recipe calls for two pounds of linguine) -- so I just used a one pound box of linguine and kept the sauce as written minus the egg. Sorry that sounds so confusing!

Lemon Linguine

1 pound box linguine (I used Barilla)
2/3 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup freshly grated parmesan
1 lemon, zested, and juice of 1/2, plus more juice, as needed
Salt (I used 2 tbsp to salt the boiling water)
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter

Cook pasta in salted boiling water. While the pasta is cooking grate the parmesan cheese and zest and juice the lemon. After the pasta is cooked and drained, add butter stir the pasta around so it is evenly coated in melted butter, then add the cream, parmesan, lemon juice and zest to the pot of buttered linguine and stir until the sauce ingredients are combined and the pasta is evenly coated in sauce. Serve immediately with extra freshly grated parmesan.

This week's theme at I Heart Cooking Clubs is Budgets and Bargains, and this pasta dish clearly fits the bill, you probably have everything you need already in your fridge and pantry and if not only cost a couple of dollars at the store. Served with a salad this makes an absolutely delicous dinner for any pasta lover. I've made lots of lemon pasta dishes (I love lemon and pasta :) ) and this is one of my favorites, especially because of the no fuss ingredient list. My husband is not a pasta fan so I made this while he was working late, my 3 year old is in a no-pasta phase so I had to make him something else, but my 2 year old and 4 year old and I really loved this dish!

Milk Chocolate Mini Bundt Cakes & Cocoa Buttermilk Cake -- Tuesdays with Dorie

Today's treat, Milk Chocolate Mini Bundt Cakes, was picked by Kristin of I’m Right About Everything, thank you Kristin! These were fun to make and I liked being able to use my mini bundt pan that doesn't get used very often.

A lot of people mentioned issues with the glaze in the P&Q section on the TWD site, I have to admit that my glaze didn't look like the book either, it just seemed too thick and seemed to set up immediately, without really dripping down the sides all pretty like. I tried to add some Valentine nonpareils, but they wouldn't even stick (I sprinkled instantly after pouring the glaze) and they all kind of pooled up in the middle. Oh-well.

I must admit we are on chocolate overload here. My husband's birthday was last Sunday and I made him the Cocoa-Buttermilk Birthday Cake that was our anniversary TWD pick last month. It was delicious and the birthday boy liked it. I had been busy in the kitchen all day making his favorite lasagna and the kids really wanted to help make daddy a cake so they could sing to him and he could blow out candles. It meant so much to them and they were so excited for daddy's special day, quite possibly more excited than he was :)

I had fun making this cake and loved how moist it was. I think the key to this one is to eat it the day it is made, it didn't taste nearly as tender the next day. Still an amazing cake, and I'm so glad to have had a chance to finally make it!

Butterscotch Pudding -- Sweet Melissa Sundays

Time for Sweet Melissa Sundays! Today's dessert is Butterscotch Pudding, picked for us to try from The Sweet Melissa Baking Book by Jennifer of Maple n' Cornbread, thank you Jennifer! You can find the recipe for this pudding here at Jennifer's site.


While I am a huge butterscotch fan, I'm not really into puddings, especially puddings with egg. The only time I've made puddings at home were for Tuesdays with Dorie, we are not big pudding eaters here. But I just had to give this a try and see how it compared to the butterscotch pudding we made for TWD in December 2008. I ended up liking that one and Melissa's pudding had a very different ingredient list which made me curious.


The kids and I absolutely loved this pudding, picky husband hasn't tried it yet. ETA -- picky husband reluctantly tried one tiny bite, then requested the remainder of the ramekin, so that means it was a hit with the whole family :) It had an amazing butterscotch flavor and I enjoyed caramelizing the sugar, that is always a fun process to watch. I tasted the caramel cream before adding it to the egg yolks and it was too salty for me. I would decrease the salt from 1 teaspoon to 1/4 teaspoon for a full recipe. I made a half recipe and used 1/2 tsp salt and think 1/8 would have been plently -- the salt did mellow down a little after baking, but I would still add less than called for next time. The perfect butterscotch flavor surprised me since there is no butter or scotch in this recipe.


I baked my ramekins, covered with foil and in their water bath, for 65 minutes -- at 60 they still looked too jiggly. I did notice the top of the puddings (above where the water bath was) were more set than the bottom, almost giving a two layer effect. But both layers were delicious and I really did not taste an eggy note at all in these, they were so creamy and smooth, really perfect texture. I can't wait to make this again and maybe make it into a pie or tart, I'm so glad I didn't let my non-pudding-liking tendencies get the best of me and skip this one or I really would have missed out.

Mini Cocoa-nana Breads -- Tuesdays with Dorie

Tuesdays with Dorie, oh how I've missed thee! So nice to be back to making (and posting about) our Tuesday treat of the week. These delicious little cocoa-nana loaves were picked for us to try by Steph of Obsessed with Baking, thank you Steph!

The recipe actually makes one big loaf but I decided to bring out the mini loaf pan that had been sitting unbaked in for months, poor neglected pan...

I used up the last of my Hershey's Special Dark Dutch processed cocoa powder for this recipe, the recipe calls for 1 cup of cocoa powder and I used 3/4 cups of Special Dark (finishing up my box) and 1/4 cup of regular Hershey's cocoa powder. If you love dark chocolate you really need to have some dark cocoa powder in your pantry because this Special Dark cocoa powder really packs a dark chocolate punch. The Special Dark cocoa powder gave these breads an outrageously dark look but also a real chocolate depth to go with the banana. The little loaves were delicious and to me the flavor improved after sitting overnight.

Do these look familiar? They were last Tuesday's treat, Lillian of Confectiona’s Realm picked Chocolate Oatmeal Almost-Candy Bars to try and I baked along with everyone and really loved these bars (raisins and all!) but didn't get a chance to post. These were such a yummy treat and as much as I enjoyed them I did have a couple of taste testers who were turned off by the raisins and picky husband said that the chocolate part was good and the oatmeal base was good, but together they were just too much...he couldn't even finish one little bar, silly guy!

Black Bottom Brownies -- Sweet Melissa Sundays

I'm so happy to be posting again! Today's treat for Sweet Melissa Sundays is a giant pan of Black Bottom Brownies, picked for us to try by Cynthia of Bakingtherapist’s Blog, thank you Cynthia! The pan isn't really that giant, just a 9 by 13, but anytime I make brownies or bars in anything bigger than a 8 by 8 pan it seems like a giant batch to me.

Here are the brownies before going into the oven, notice that there aren't quite 2 cups of chocolate chips sprinkled over the top as called for in the recipe. I had measured out 2 cups and after sprinkling only about 1/2 cup I decided that would be plenty of chocolate chips on top. When I got started baking these I knew I would need quite a few eggs since the brownie layer and cheesecake layer both have eggs in them but I neglected to count out my eggs and only had 9 left when the recipe calls for 10 eggs and 2 yolks. Yikes, that's a lot of eggs! So I skipped the two yolks that were called for in the brownie layer (4 eggs plus 2 yolks were what the recipe requested) and in the cheesecake layer I used only 5 eggs instead of the 6 called for. I don't think these brownies suffered any adverse effects because I was short 3 eggs. One other change I made was to bake these at 350 instead of the 325 called for because I was using an insulated 9 by 13 pan and that bakes best at 350. Total baking time was around 50 minutes.

The kids really enjoyed these a little warm, after the cooling off period but before refrigeration overnight. I personally liked the better from the fridge. Husband was a no try because he hates cheesecake. They are very rich so be sure to cut them small if you give these a try. The recipe can be found in the Sweet Melissa Baking Book and I think it will also be posted at Cynthia's blog.

Romanian Easter Bread

Happy New Year! I'm hoping to be posting more in 2010 and getting back to my online baking and cooking clubs which I have really missed over the last months.

This bread was my pick for My Kitchen My World -- Romania. You can find the recipe here. I forgot to add the raisins while kneading and ended up sprinkling some on top before baking, and of course as soon as I removed it from the pan the raisins fell right off...oh-well. I had planned to make a powdered sugar icing and add raisins to the top of that but the kids wanted me to serve them this bread right away, so no chance for pretty icing and photos.