Entries tagged with 'brownies'
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"Next came the fun part. I squeezed four wide lines of peanut buttery goo over the batter." Raise your hand if Reese's Peanut Butter Cups are you favorite candy. How about Snickers bars? Or Baby Ruth? Whatever sweet treat you hold closest to your heart, there is no denying that chocolate and peanut butter make a slam dunk combination. Why, then, is it so difficult to find a decent recipe for peanut butter brownies? Ones with a dense fudgy base and rivers of nutty swirls? Most of the recipes I've come across either mix the peanut butter directly into the batter (no swirls), or are more like a peanut butter blondie with chocolate chips. Still others involve copious amounts of...
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I'm going to use this recipe for making brownies in a waffle iron as an excuse to eat brownies for breakfast. "They're shaped like waffles! It's OK!" Watch the video after the jump....
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I've been thinking a lot about brownie sundaes lately. I guess it all started last year, when I went to a restaurant with some friends. It was the sort of place where you would expect to see a brownie sundae—Buffalo wings, fish and chips, steak sandwiches with gravy and cheese—but for some reason, it wasn't on the menu. When our waitress brought our check at the end of the meal, there was a comment card tucked inside. We wrote: Great food, good beer. But you should have a brownie sundae. A few months ago we went back, and lo and behold, there it was: "our" brownie sundae. Then the conversation turned to what makes a good one: vanilla ice...
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Since their debut in 1995, fat-free No Pudge! Brownies have been a dieting staple, right up there with Special K and Skinny Cow. Over the years they've garnered much media praise, but it's been mostly from health magazines like Self, Fitness, and Weight Watchers, which called No Pudge! "the brownie of your dreams" in a 1999 article. I wasn't convinced. After all, the foundations of these magazines are built around calorie counting and pound-dropping. Sometimes they make bogus arguments that veggie burgers taste just like hamburgers, or that 1/2 cup of nonfat frozen yogurt will satisfy your craving for a hot fudge sundae. Yeah, right. But when I read that Chocolatier had pronounced No Pudge! Brownies "thick, moist, and truly...
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Xanthe Clay of Telegraph tries to recreate the legendary brownies—"as close as I've found to perfection"—from London cafe Ottolenghi. After searching for the ingredient that gives the brownie its "divine praline flavor" and the baking technique that results in the perfect ganache-like center with a crispy top, she comes up with a final recipe that involves praline chocolate bars and an ice water bath. Related New Del Posto Pastry Chef Makes the Best Brownie Ever—And It's Gluten-Free Brownies Worth Waiting For Baking with Dorie: Les Brownies, from America to France and Back Again Here's My Favorite Brownie Recipe—What's Yours?...
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I hope my mother, who lovingly taught me how to bake dense, fudgy brownies from The Joy of Cooking when I was a little girl isn't reading this: while her version holds a special place in my heart, the Fat Witch's brownies are better. The Fat Witch Bakery is located in New York City's Chelsea Market, which is also home to Food Network headquarters. Two years ago, when I was freelancing at the Food Network, I couldn't stop myself from popping into the bakery every day on my lunch hour to savor a sample (or two, or three) from the plate so generously set out by the cash register. Thick, buttery, and moist, Fat Witch's brownies had the most intense...
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These walnut brownies, from Lisa of Spicy Ice Cream, would be a source of contention in my family. It's death (not literally) for one member, and ambivalence for the rest of us. Either way, I am in the camp of pro-mix-ins in my brownie as long as it's a "crackly, crispy-topped brownie with a slightly gooey, still-warm center." Therefore, through my awesome powers of deduction, Lisa's brownies, topped with a generous scoop of vanilla ice cream, would be perfect for me. Hopefully, you're also in my camp because, honestly, that's where the party's at....
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Brownies aren't merely my preferred dessert; they're one of my all-time favorite foods. Over the years I've learned to bake some pretty amazing varieties, from Susan Spungen's Saucepans to Nigella Lawson's Triple Chocolates. Just stir together some butter, sugar, flour, eggs, and chocolate, and what emerges from the oven is confectionery heaven, decadent and familiar. Nothing could be simpler. Nothing, that is, except baking them from a box....
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When you walk into Tisserie you're immediately confronted by long, shiny cases of baked goods, sandwiches, and pizzas, an array of stuff we see in many places all over New York. The two classically trained Venezuelan brothers who own Tisserie, Ronald and Morris Harrar, obviously subscribe to the "give the people what they want" school of food retailing. But I'm going to save you the time and the money involved in trying everything in these cases. You can skip most of the fruity, creamy, or flaky things you see, and you can certainly skip the pizzas, which include one made of smoked turkey and pineapple. Smoked turkey and pineapple! What were they thinking? So what is worth the money...
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On the fudgy-cakey brownie continuum I'm a straddler. I like them moist like fudge but I don't want them to taste like either flourless chocolate cake or uncooked dough. This brownie straddling makes it really hard to find brownies I swoon over, but Mari Tuttle manages to do it with a couple of her Mari's New York flavors. Her caramel sea salt brownies have a slightly briny quality I really like, and her Thai coffee brownies pack a hefty caffeine-like wallop. I also appreciate the size of Mari's brownies—they're little one inch squares, just enough to get your brownie fix without feeling bloated. Mari's brownies are pricey, $15 for six little squares plus shipping, but in this case you do...
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