This Week's FHE Treat......Blondies!

Our family looks forward to Family Home Evening every Monday night.  The kids really enjoy doing activities together as a family, but most of all, they like the treats that come with it.  This week we decided to make Blondies loaded with butterscotch and chocolate chips.  They look good, don't they?  They taste even better than they look.  Rich, yummy, goodness.

This is what you need to make these treats.

1 cup of butter (2 sticks), melted
2 cups of light brown sugar, firmly packed
2 teaspoons of baking powder
1/4 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon of vanilla
2 cups of all-purpose flour
2 eggs
1 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 cup of butterscotch chips
1 cup of chopped pecans, finely chopped (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 9 X 13 baking dish (I used cooking spray with flour in it).  Combine baking powder, flour, and salt.  Set aside.  Cream together butter and sugar.  Mix in eggs and vanilla.  Add the flour mixture and mix well.  Stir in the baking chips and nuts.  Pour mixture into your greased baking dish.  Bake for 35 to 40 minutes (the center will still be kind of gooey).  Allow to cool completely before cutting. Preferably overnight.

Blondies are so delicious with a little ice cream on top....

...and even better topped with a home made caramel sauce!

This is Ina Garten's Caramel Sauce.  

1 1/2 cups sugar

1/3 cup water

1 1/4 cups heavy cream

1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Mix the water and sugar in a medium heavy-bottomed saucepan.  Cook over low heat for 5-10 minutes, until the sugar dissolves.  Do not stir.  Increase the heat to medium and boil uncovered until the sugar turns a warm chestnut brown (about 350 degrees F on a candy thermometer), about 5 to 7 minutes, gently swirling the pan to stir the mixture.  Be careful- the mixture is extremely hot!  Watch the mixture very carefully at the end, as it will go from caramel to burnt very quickly.  Turn off the heat.  Stand back to avoid splattering and slowly add the cream and vanilla.  Don't worry- the cream will bubble violently and the caramel will solidify.

Simmer over low heat, stirring constantly, until the caramel dissolves and the sauce is smooth, about 2 minutes.  Allow to cool to room temperature, at least 4 hours.  It will thicken as it sits.

ENJOY!

Chocolate Chip Cheese Bars.....A Guest Post From Jill.

My dear Sister-in-Law posted this recipe, and I thought that all of you would enjoy it.  These Chocolate Chip Cheese Bars are to die for!  Here is a copy of her post.......

First of all, I don't usually post recipes because I am the worst at following them.  I get it from my mom- she calls it the "Football Rules of cooking- unlimited substitutions."  My mom probably gets it from her mom.  I have recipes from my grandma that actually call for a glug of milk, or a glug of oil.  I look at recipes more as suggestions or guidelines, then do my own thing.  Sometimes things turn out really good, and sometimes... not so good.  My husband likes the way I cook, so I guess that's good enough.  I discovered allrecipes.com and found that there are a lot of cooks out there like me.  It makes me laugh when I read the comments, and someone says they didn't like the recipe that much, and that they substituted rice vinegar for apple cider vinegar and left out the ginger or doubled all the spices...  BTW, I do follow baking and canning recipes.


Anyway, my sister-in-law made these yummy bars earlier this year, and passed the recipe along. 


Chocolate Chip Cheese Bars


2 cups of your favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe (or 1 tube refrigerated chocolate chip cookie dough)
1 package (8 oz.) cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg

Divide cookie dough in half.  For crust, press half of the dough onto the bottom of a greased 8 X 8 inch baking pan.
In a large bowl, beat the cream cheese, sugar and egg until smooth.  Spread over crust.
Crumble remaining dough over top.
Bake at 350 for 35-40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean.  Cool on a wire rack.  Refrigerate leftovers.


I doubled the recipe, and cooked it in a 9 X 13 pan.  


Here's the recipe I like for Chocolate Chip Cookies:

1 c white sugar
1 c brown sugar
1 c butter flavored shortening (or 1/2 c shortening and 1/2 c butter)
3 eggs
1 t vanilla
1 t salt
1 t soda
3 cups flour
1 bag chocolate chips

Cream together sugars, and shortening.  Add eggs and vanilla and mix well.  Add dry ingredients then chocolate chips.  Bake at 375 for 8 minutes.






Thank you so much Jill for this yummy post!

My dear friend Melissa shared this recipe with me, and of course I had to try it. She also gave me permission to put it on my blog. THANK YOU VERY MUCH MELISSA!

Any of you who know me well, know that my favorite ice cream is cookie mint. So, of course, I instantly took a liking to this recipe. It was really easy to make, and very delicious in the end.

Here are the 3 main ingredients:

A Boxed Brownie Mix, Chocolate Sandwich Cookies, and Andes Mints. There’s no way you could go wrong with these, right?

Grasshopper Brownies

Ingredients

2 boxes of any regular brownie mix (I used 1 family size mix)

6 Tbsp. Flour

About 10 Tbsp. Butter (plus more for pan)

About ½ cup milk

4 eggs

1 package chocolate sandwich cookies

2 bags Andes thin mints

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 9” X 13” pan. Cover bottom of pan with parchment paper. Allow a few inches of paper to rise above the long sides of the pan. These will serve as handles to remove the brownies later. Butter the parchment paper.

Make brownies according to package directions with the following exceptions:

- Add 6 Tbsp. Flour to the mix

- Replace oil with melted butter

- Replace water with milk

Chop 1 ½ bags thin mints into coarse chunks. Place sandwich cookies in a large plastic bag and break into pieces with hands and a rolling pin. Stir mints and cookies into brownies by hand- batter will be very thick.

Spoon batter evenly into pan. Bake for 45-55 minutes. Remove pan from oven and cool on a wire rack for 20 minutes. Use parchment paper “handles” to lift brownies from pan and cool completely on wire rack. Cut brownies into preferred serving size and store in an airtight container for up to 3 days.

Looking good, right?

How about now?

Mmmmm.... Delicious! What is amazing about these brownies is that you get a little crunch from the cookies and some gooiness from the melted mints. I will be making these again and again!

S'MORE BROWNIES ANYONE?

I had so many of my readers tell me that they made and really enjoyed the Chocolate Chip Cookie Brownies that I posted. So I decided to add S’more Brownies for everyone to look at, drool over, and to try.

One of my favorite things to do in the summertime is go camping. Well, not really. But I do enjoy the s’mores that usually go along with all of our camping trips. Since it is not quite warm enough to do the camping thing yet, I decided to make brownies with a s’more twist. I think you will really enjoy them. We sure did! I asked each of my children (my little bakers in training) to tell me how they would describe these brownies after they took the first bite…….

Erin said, “Delicious, gooey, and better than good!”

Ryan said, “Yummy and gooey. They really do taste like S’mores!”

Ashley said, “I like them, but they are so gooey Mom. They are yummy in my tummy.”

Adam said, “More…more….more…..”

So that about sums them up. They were simple to make. A bag of marshmallows, a boxed brownie mix, some graham crackers, a little butter, and some sugar is all it took to make these delicious wonders.

I started by making a graham cracker crust. I crushed about 16 graham crackers, and mixed them with ½ cup of butter, and ¼ cup of sugar. I pressed it into a 9X13 inch pan and let it bake for about 7 minutes. Next, I mixed up the brownie mix (according to the directions on the package), and poured it on top of the graham cracker crust. Then I baked it according to the package directions as well.

After the brownies cooled, I stacked large marshmallows over the entire top and stuck them under the broiler just long enough to toast them. Mmmmm…… It even smelled like the toasted marshmallows from camping.

I really loved them, but when I make them again, I think I will cut the marshmallows in half or use mini marshmallows instead. That might reduce some of the gooey-ness. But if you like gooey-ness, you will love the large marshmallows! I hope you try them out. Let me know what you think.

Delicious Chocolate Chip Cookie Brownies

I found a blog that I really enjoy reading on a regular basis. It is www.bakerella.blogspot.com. On her blog, Bakerella offers a lot of cute, fun, and delicious recipe ideas for others to try. I saw this recipe and had to give it a try.

You simply make your favorite brownie recipe, and your favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe. Take big spoonfuls of the cookie dough and press it into the brownie batter. Looking good, right? Oh, it gets even better.

After they bake, you need to let them cool completely. Then pour on some chocolate ganache. (I will include my chocolate ganache recipe at the bottom of this post)

You need to allow the chocolate ganache some time to set up before you cut into it. I know, you need a lot of patience! But it is all worth it in the end. Mmmmmm.......

Don't they look AWESOME? They were fun to make, and they taste great too.

Chocolate Ganache Recipe

8 oz. Semi Sweet Chocolate (I used semi sweet chocolate chips)

3/4 Cup Heavy whipping cream

2 Tablespoons Butter

1/2 t. vanilla (optional)

Bring the whipping cream and butter to a boil over medium heat. Pour over the chocolate in a bowl. Cover and let sit for 5 minutes. Whisk until blended and creamy. Pour over your brownies, or whatever dessert you are making. Let it set up and you are good to go. This recipe can also be used to make chocolate truffles.

Valentine Mint Brownie Bites

I made these Mint Brownie Bites to give out to friends and family for Valentine's Day. I started by making brownies in mini muffin tins. Next I made a buttercream frosting and added pink food coloring and a drop of mint extract. I topped off the treat with a heart-shaped Dove chocolate. Simple and Delicious!

Give this treat a try, and let me know what you think. Also, if you have some good Valentine's Day treat ideas of your own, I would love to hear about them. HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!