Stuffed Brownies, Three Ways

  Before I start this post I just want to say how saddened I am by what happened on Friday.  I have been home with a bad cold or flu or something.  And I was watching movies all day. I did not hear about the horror until I picked up Pork Chop from day care.  He had seen it at day care, and I had to try to explain to him that those kids were now in heaven.  That even the man that did this, is in heaven.  I had to try to explain suicide to an 8 year old.  It was not something I ever wanted to have to do this young.  He seems fine, but I hurt for those that were affected.  I just had to make mention, as I just don't know how you can go on like nothing happened.  I wrote this post a few weeks back.


So I love brownies, but not just regular ones. I mean those are good too, but I need something more. Be it just a fudge frosting, or a mint layer, I need it.  So I had this really smart idea to stuff some of my brownies. And by smart idea, I saw it on another blog where they put stuff in their brownies and I figured I could do it too.  And I did; sort of.

My plan was to make three kinds.  Two of the options turned out well, the other, well lets just say I cried a little over the loss of sugar.

  So to start I used the awesome brownie recipe I got from Glorious Treats.  Here is the post with it, but these are for Mint Brownies, which are amazing.  You just need the brownie base for what I did.

This is the left over mint filing, I froze it then rolled it out then cut it with a cookie cutter.

These are the fillings I used.  The top is the chocolate covered salted caramels, and then the marzipan. I got a log of it and just cut it into circles.

To start I used about 1 TBSP of brownie filling.

  I wanted to use up the left over peppermint patty filling I had.  I had frozen  it and kept it for just this very thing.  And I also think this was the worse of the three.  But live and learn, right? I also made marzipan filled brownies and salted caramel ones.

I don't know how something so yummy can look so gross.

So I baked the first layer of brownie for about 5 minutes, I figured that it would help keep the filling from sinking.

And I was running out of brownie batter so the filling was not totally covered.

 So to start I mixed up my brownie batter and I used muffin tins, I lined them because I didn't want to chance anything from the filling burning onto my pans.  I cut up the log of marzipan into circles, if you buy the tub or block of almond paste, just roll out and flatten balls of it to fit into the tin.  Then I rolled out and cut circles of mint with a cookie cutter, and the caramels they were just easy.  I found these large caramels covered with chocolate and sea salt at the drug store.  So I just had to unwrap those.  I out should have done a few less as I was running out of brownie batter by the last batch, but you know me, I kept going even though I knew it would not be great.

It's hard to see but those are the chocolates in the there, they were the perfect size!!

So to start I put about 1 TBSP of brownie batter in the cupcake liner, then I baked it for about 5 minutes. I then worked one filling at a time.  The marzipan could have been cut thinner but oh well. Basically I would put the filling in then try to cover it in a bit more batter. It worked well for the caramel ones, the others, not so much.

My mint.

Like this right out of the oven they didn't look too bad.

But as they cooled I noticed the mint was getting hard and the brownie was sinking.

One they were all baked I let them cool fully.  I then got to work icing them.  I used this really great fudge sauce I found on line, and it works so well.  And with that tempt I have to admit I cannot for the life of me find the frosting recipe I used! This was the left over I had in the freezer from a few months back.  I promise I will find it and share, really it was awesome!.  Anyway just pretend you know the frosting I am talking about.

There were the caramel ones, they were the best.  Also the ones I made the least of. Because I may have eaten a bunch of the chocolates before I thought to make these.

 So when I was ready I microwaved the frosting to make it pour able  and I filled the cupcake liners to cover the brownies.  Then depending on the filing I decorated them.  

All ready to frost.

It's hard to see but this is the salted caramel ones, so I sprinkled on some flaked sea salt, just a pinch.

These are the marzipan ones, I put on silver balls, because I don't really know what else screams marzipan.

 Once they were all iced I let them set up and brought them to work.  I kept one of each to try.  And I may have said it before, but the caramel ones were to die for.  Like I will make those again, for sure!

You can sort of see the filling, so good!

The mint ones were a fail, but at least I tried.  I think maybe if I make these with the mint filling covered in chocolate it may work better. 

Christmas Coal, Peppermint Patty's in Disguise

These are the pretty ones, the coal, well it looks like coal.

  So I have not been in the baking mood, just not into it for some reason.  I mean I really want to and I have all these great plans, but then I sit down and I want to stay on my butt for the rest of the day.  It's how I roll. I need to be constantly doing something or else I sit and it is not easy to get me moving again.  Ask Hubby, he is all over it now, but in the first few years he was probably plotting to kill me.  Anyway I actually did something baking like on Saturday and it totally didn't turn out how I wanted.  Which is total proof to me that if I sit down, I should stay that way.

  It's just safer for everyone this way.

This is just a big bowl of peppermint patty innards, is that kind of gross to say?  Well it is, also it is reddish, I didn't want to use too much food colouring, just pretend it's red.

  But I tried and I failed, but I totally got something else out of it, so I actually won.  I knew I was a winner!!!

  So Saturday after work we took Pork Chop to see Wreck It Ralph, and it was adorable, I really enjoyed it and he was all over the video game aspect of it.  So when we got home he wanted to play with his toys and I figured I better do something before I sat down again, and so I did.  I wanted to make peppermint patties in a holiday style.  What that really means I have no idea, I just knew they had to be festive.

This cute little pan I had to have, I think I have used it once, so it's paid for itself really.

Peppermint Patties
Based on something I read on I am Baker

-2 small cans of sweetened condensed milk
-3 TBSP peppermint extract
-red food colouring paste
-icing sugar, as much as you want

Basically mix everything but the icing sugar together, then add the icing sugar until it is as thick as you like.  If you like a runny mint ( you can pour them into chocolate coated molds) then add less sugar.  I like them very dense so I add it until my poor mixer is about to burn out, and then I am good.  Then you shape them and freeze them and dip them in whatever kind of chocolate you like.  I also like to keep mine frozen, they taste better to me that way.

This is an ice cube tray.  Story about this, I made hubby drive me around for like 4 hours one night to find the perfect ice cube tray to make ice for my ice coffee.  Guess how many times I actually used it.  Well if you guessed 3 times, you would be a winner.  Hubby may have tried to hurt me, but I would not know, he does that when I am sleeping.

  So I got to mixing up my patty filling, adding just enough red food paste to make it sort of red and then I got to work.  I had two silicon pans I planned to use.  My gingerbread one and a snowflake one.  I will tell you right now, if you have not figured it out from the title, this didn't work.  I spent all this time smooshing my filling into the pans and then I froze them and I waited a little longer to make sure they set.  I did some normal puddles of peppermint and dipped those first.  I put some festive sprinkles on them, because nothing screams holidays like snowflake sprinkles.

  Then I got out the snow flakes and tried to pop out the shapes.  And they cracked and part of them stayed in the mold and I was all.  "Seriously!  I got off the sofa for this!"  So I just mushed the stuff together into lumpy ball shapes.  Then I dipped them.  I figured my gingerbread men would be better as they had frozen longer.

So far so good right?

 I may have been wrong.  I spend a huge amount of time prying filling out of the pans and smooshing them all together.  I dipped everything in melted milk chocolate that I had really thinned down.  And when I was done, I stood back and said to myself "self, you suck!"

They remind me of the cream cheese wedding mints like this, I should have figured out that these would fair.

  Then I started to clean up a bit.  And did you know that peppermint patty filling is like super glue?  Well neither did I, but I did spend a good half hour trying to get it out of my pans.  I finally gave up and left one for hubby to deal with.  Then I went back and looked at my lumps of peppermint patty and then I said "self you are the smartest person ever!!!"

If you look closely you may notice the one on the bottom sort of has a snow flake shape, sort of.

 Why you ask?  Well I had invented peppermint patty coal.  See right there, that is why I get of the sofa every  now and then.  I screw something up so badly it turns out to be the best thing ever.

  And then I packed a bunch of the ones with the sprinkles up for my co workers, but I kept all the coal for myself.  I am so bad, I deserve it.

I should have stopped, but you know I was on a roll.

  But how great is that?!  Imagine if you will, getting a little baggy or box of these, being told basically that you were such a horrible person that all you get is coal from Santa, but then you eat one and it's awesome.

  I know, sometimes I don't know how I contain all my awesome.

I was just pissed off at this point so this is the best picture of the coal you are going to get, sorry.

 Or my modesty, really how Hubby can handle it is beyond me.  And after the last few weeks, I totally deserve an awesome mistake for once.

These are the nice ones my coworkers got, I could eat these all day, if they didn't make my tummy turn into knots that is.

  Just don't expect this level of awesome again okay?  That will save us all a lot of disappointment in the end.