Salted Caramel Brownie Sandwich Cookies

My Mum sent me the link to this recipe with just the subject title ‘Oh My Word’. Which is slightly alarming in the few seconds before the link loads, but once I had seen exactly what she was talking about, I replied instantly: ‘OMG’. The conversation continued in a similarly monosyllabic style: ‘Blog?’ ‘Definitely.’ With a recipe title like this one, what more can you say?!Fast forward three days later and these cookies were cooling in my kitchen. I was nervous they would not live up to our high expectations but I needn’t have worried. You can’t really go wrong with this much chocolate and caramel! The cookies are exactly like the edge pieces of my favourite Nigella brownie recipe – chewy on top but still slightly fudgy in the centre. I think the trick with the filling is to be brave with the salt because a hefty pinch sprinkled on top of the caramel really brings out the flavours and stops it being too sickly. The cookie mixture is quite runny – 300g of chocolate to 50g of flour – which makes it tricky to get perfectly even circles, but somehow every biscuit still ended up with a suitable partner. I adapted the recipe a bit to suit the ingredients I had, but it seems versatile enough to continue playing about with – you could use dulce de leche instead of making the frosting or add white chocolate chips to the cookies, for example. Before I tucked in, I sent a photo to my Mum to show her the results waiting for her at home. The reply? ‘Ooohhhh.’ Which sums them up really – enjoy!

Salted Caramel Brownie Sandwich Cookies adapted from this recipe

Ingredients: 100g dark chocolate, chopped
250g milk chocolate, chopped
40g unsalted butter
2 eggs
150g soft light brown sugar sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract 
50g plain flour, sifted
¼ teaspoon baking powder, sifted

Caramel filling: 165g caster sugar
60ml water
125ml double cream
150g unsalted butter, chopped
sea salt flakes, for sprinkling

1. Start with the caramel filling. Place the sugar and water in a medium saucepan over low heat and stir occasionally with a wooden spoon handle until the sugar is dissolved.
2. Increase the heat to medium and bring to the boil. Use a pastry brush dipped in water to brush down any sugar crystals clinging to the edge of the pan. Boil – without stirring – for 5-8 minutes until deep golden.
3. Remove from the heat and carefully add the cream and butter. Return the saucepan to the heat and stir until the mixture is smooth. Refrigerate until completely cool and firmed up.
4. For the cookies, preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F). Place 200g of the milk chocolate, all the dark chocolate and the butter in a small saucepan over low heat and stir frequently, until melted and smooth. Set aside.
5. Place the eggs, sugar and vanilla in an electric mixer and whisk for 10 minutes until paler and creamy. Gently stir through the flour, baking powder, chocolate mixture and remaining 50g of milk chocolate and allow to stand for 10 minutes.
4. Drop tablespoonfuls of the mixture onto baking trays lined with non-stick baking paper, allowing them room to spread. Bake for 8–10 minutes or until puffed and cracked. Allow to cool completely on trays.
5. Whisk the firmed up caramel mixture.  Spread half the cookies with the icing, sprinkle generously with the salt and sandwich with the remaining cookies. Makes 12 sandwiches.

Blondies and Brownies In One

What shall I make this weekend…Cake or biscuits? Pie or tart? Delicate mini meringues or generous billowing pavlova?Such are the decisions faced by baking bloggers. Flavours are another decision to be made – nuts, fruit, spices, citrus, white chocolate, dark chocolate? Well, worry and dither no more as my bake today solves this last decision. Phew. ;) Instead of having to choose between sweet white chocolate blondies or classic, rich dark chocolate brownies – combine the two. Even better, combine the two using heart-shaped cut-outs. Why? Just because you can, because its cute, because it’s nearly Valentine’s Day and because these are my entry to English Mum’s Valentines Day Baked With Love Bakeoff.

I have embraced Valentine’s baking before but I didn’t last year so it felt good to be back with all things heart shaped, although I drew the line at pink or glitter this year. I’ve had this recipe from Smitten Kitchen bookmarked for a year, but this was finally the excuse I needed to bake them. I’ve tried blondies before but it’s always really hard to find a good recipe that lets the white chocolate shine, so I was keen to give this recipe a go. As I was making them I wasn’t convinced there was enough chocolate involved (you can never have too much!) so I added chocolate chunks as well and it was definitely worth it – they added bursts of chocolate flavour and caramelised slightly which was delicious. Both the brownie and blondie recipes worked very well, particularly the brownie which stayed really moist and fudgy. Some of my blondies ended up being a bit small for the heart cutter, so I used my smallest circle instead. It was quite a delicate process swapping the brownie circle centres as they were so moist, and it was definitely easier with the bigger hearts. Overall though they turned out really well – quite the treat! The combination of blondie and brownie at once was intriguing as the two chocolates worked really well together. I know the amounts in the recipe are a bit strange, (the recipe was converted from American measurements and then halved) but if you have a digital scale then it should be no problem. It makes a small batch of 12 finished combined brownies as well, so if you’re feeding a crowd definitely double it. I’ve just put the amounts once, so just switch the chocolate after you’ve made the first batch.  I’m thinking these could work with any other cut-out shape for other times of year: pumpkin cutters at Halloween, Christmas trees at Christmas etc etc. For now, embrace the slightly cheesy aspect of this idea, and enjoy!

Blondie and Brownie Hearts, adapted from Smitten Kitchen

80g chopped white chocolate, split into 45g and 35g
56g butter
88g sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla
smidge of salt
40g plain flour

1. Preheat the oven to 180’C. Line a 8x8inch square tin. You will not fill the whole tin, so screw up some tin foil and place it in the tin to prevent the brownie mixture eventually spreading into a thin layer across the whole pan.

2.Melt the 43g of white chocolate and butter together in a bowl, over a saucepan of boiling water.

3. Take off the heat and whisk in the sugar (the mixture will look like it really wont work at this stage – carry on!). Whisk in the egg and vanilla and then finally fold in the flour, salt and remaining 57g of white chocolate chunks.

4. Pour the mixture into the tin, and bake for 15 minutes. Cut the brownies into six even squares (judge the sizes compared to your cutter – ensure there will be a decent border around the cut-out) and leave to cool. Use a heart cutter to cut a heart out of the centre of each brownie.

5. Repeat the whole recipe from step 1, but using dark chocolate throughout instead of white chocolate.

5. Put blondie hearts in brownie gaps and vice versa. Embrace the cute factor and enjoy!

The Great Brownie Bake Off!

The Great Brownie Bake Off was an event I went to in London yesterday. The Great Brownie Bake Off (GBBO) was organised by Louise Thomas who has the amazing job of a Chocolate Consultant! It was held at the cool cafe/bike-shop, Look Mum No Hands which was packed with chocolate fans! 25 foodies entered their own recipe for the best brownie, which were judged by 11 judges! The judges took the process very seriously – sniffing each brownie, examining texture, colour and taste and much more. Whilst this went on, there were demonstrations…The first demo I saw was by Edd Kimber. Edd is the winner of the BBC’s Great British Bake Off, a fab recent TV series that inspired the days Brownie Off.  Edd demonstrated banana whoopie pies with chocolate ganache and was superb against the tricky audience (distracted by free brownies!) – plus it was his first demo. I wasn’t quick enough to try one but they looked gorgeous and the recipe is now on his lovely blog so I look forward to trying them! The other demo that I saw was by Stacie Stewart, a finalist from Masterchef. Since Masterchef, Stacie has set up The Beehive Bakery and her own cookery school.  She demonstrated chocolate and mascarpone cupcakes and taught me two interesting baking tips:

1) the reason butter has to be soft for cupcakes is it allows the fat molecules to expand, making your cake soft and light instead of heavy and dry.
2) sugar should be added to a cupcake mix slowly, not all at once, again for a softer cupcake.

I entered the fun with my brownies – I knew were too vanilla-y (accidentally used vanilla sugar!) and didn’t dare pick up my score card but I liked how they looked… Congratulations to Louise M, the brownie champion, and a huge thank you to Louise Thomas for organising the whole day! It was so exciting seeing the people I’ve watched avidly on TV in the flesh, and tasting many fab brownies. Can’t wait to attend my next foodie event very soon…

The Ultimate Brownie!

As you read this I am in Spain and hopefully having a great time. As I write this, however, I am busy packing and getting ready for that holiday so this may be short and full of pictures!
Also as you read this on the 8th August - it is my Mum's birthday! I thought she definitely deserved a mention on here as she is fantastic! She does catering for parties and helping or watching her make huge batches of 150 canapes is truly amazing! She is my inspiration for cooking and I am extremely envious of her talent. Happy Birthday Mummy!
Now, before I get on to the brownies, here are the pictures of the Little Mocha Kisses sandwiched together with coffee icing. The recipe said chocolate but I was out of cocoa powder and didn’t want to get any, plus as I had been disappointed with the coffee flavour and my Dad likes coffee I thought the icing would be a good way to enhance it. And, for once, I was right!

I thought the icing made the cookies better and I think the coffee flavour worked better than the chocolate would have done. My icing was quite wet because I kept adding more coffee as I wanted that strong taste I have had in previous coffee cakes etc. Although I would say it made quite a lot of icing I think it might work well for the batch it is just lots had been eaten by the time I got round to sandwiching!

But enough of the kisses! Brownie time! As you can probably guess from the title I am a real fan of these brownies. They are perfect in my eyes – a nice crunchy topping, then getting softer and squidgier as you go down to the bottom. Beautifully chocolatey and rich. Fairly simple to make and – perhaps best of all, it makes a large pan full!

So here is the recipe:

Brownies, from How to Be A Domestic Goddess by Nigella Lawson

Fills a 33 by 23 by 5 ½ cm tin, or Nigella says a maximum of 48 brownies. I say – a lot!

375g soft unsalted brownies
375g best-quality dark chocolate
6 large eggs
1tbsp vanilla extract
500g caster sugar
225g plain flour
1 tsp salt
300g chopped walnuts (because I hate nuts apart from almonds and my sis isn’t that keen, we never use these. I think it spoils the gooey texture as well.)

1. Preheat the oven to 180’C/gas mark 4. Line your brownie pan – sides as well – with parchment.

2. Melt the butter and chocolate together in a large heavy based saucepan. In a bowl or large measuring jug, beat the eggs with the sugar and vanilla. Measure the flour into another bowl and add the salt.

3. When the chocolate mixture has melted, let it cool for a bit before beating in the eggs and sugar, then the nuts (if using) and flour. Beat to combine smoothly and then scrape out of the saucepan into the lined pan.

4. Bake for about 25 minutes. When its ready, the top should be dried to a paler brown speckle but the middle still dark and dense and gooey. Even with such a big batch, keep alert, keep checking, the difference between gungy brownies and dry brownies is only a few minutes! Also, they will continue to cook as they cool.

Yum!