Good Grief Charlie Brown(ies)

Yeah thats right, i went there. (sorry schulz)

There are 3 reasons why i adore this recipe for peppermint pattie brownies:

1. brownies are probs in my top 5 baked goods of all time
2. i really really love anything peppermint
3. i really really REALLY love peppermint patties, ever since i fell in love with them on a ski-ing trip to killington a few years back. i can scoff a bag of them in a scary amount of time it wouldn't even be worth filming for man vs food they're gone that quick
4. all we have here are peppermint poppets which suck ass in comparison and you only get like, 5 in a box
4. i really really love anything snoopy related and peppermint patty is a boss
5. they come from the absolutely stunning food blog How Sweet It Is which i am currently obsessed with and my new blogging hero/inspiration is the very funny and lovely Jessica who runs it
6. i made them and they came out WELL good, giving me mega baking confidence booster points and the boyfriend agreed to help make them too which was a great way to spend a sunday afternoon
7. my friend Lucy once made me a 17th birthday cake with snoopy on and rachel (fellow blogee of this blog!) dropped the cake on the floor outside lucy's house. I don't think i've ever quite recovered but these seriously make up for missing Peanuts related baked goods in my life.

Okay, so thats er, 7 reasons why i adore this recipe.
This basically turned out to be the best brownie batch i have ever baked combined with the most fun and delicious topping you could want. Americans might say silly food things like scallions or chickpea mash or eggplant but by eck do they give good candy, this recipe is SOOO american and it works so, so well.
It wasn't dry, it didn't sink when i took it out the oven. The fondant turned out the most perfect consistancy. Maybe i under estimated my darling boyfriends cooking skills! (this didn't involve meat, pasta or caesar dressing so i thought we were in for a challenge)
I don't have too much waffling to do for once, this easy and delicious invention has sugar stunned me into silence for the first time ever.
It was incredibly easy to make- mixing time about 10 mins and baking time about 30. Fondant done in 10. Refrigerate for another 30 whilst you make the ganache. Eat entire block of them in about 5 seconds. I didn't even need my beloved kitchen aid for the batter its that easy!
I really cant remember the last time i ate something so good that i wanted to skip around my kitchen going weeeeee/OH MY GAD/guhhh im in food heaven at the same time. I think pancakes or pulled pork are the only things that make me go weak at the knees these days but these brownies may have just taken top spot.

I can't take ANY credit for these. Its all thanks to the amazing recipe from Jessica's blog.
Please go have a look, even if its just to drool over her fabulous food porn photos!
Follow the link for the recipe and don't get too confused with the cups you can look up conversions into grams. You can buy all the ingredients in good old tesco theres nothing complex about this recipe at all.
For some reason my peppermint fondant didn't come out as bright white as hers did which is a shame as the bright white icing looks great against the dark fudgey brownie, but it sticks all together perfectly in a big sticky minty chocolaty chunk of heaven.
I honestly don't think there's anything better than refreshing peppermint cutting through chocolate and theres something about fondant thats just so blissfully moreish you just can't help yourself. These will literally just make you go UGH (in a very, very good way). Make sure you use good quality dark chocolate for the ganache otherwise it will taste rubbish.

Enjoy!

Holly x

CLICK HERE FOR BROWNIE HEAVEN

My Two Favourite Things - Wine and Chocolate

This week is my last week at my current job, and so last week I was inundated with requests for some cakes to bring in this week. Whilst browsing the Internet for a bakewell tart recipe to make for these guys, I somehow came across this fabulous blog, Love and Olive Oil.

These guys are incredible, and after browsing through their recipes (there are A LOT) this one really caught my eye. Chocolate and wine, a girl's dream.

The recipe uses olive oil instead of butter in the cake mixture, which gives it a gorgeous richness and helps preserve the cake for much longer. I think I will be using this trick on a few more of my recipes.

I also made a few changes to the original recipe - my edition is below, the original can be found here.

It will take a while to assemble, and you will end up become facetious about how smooth the edges are. If pressed for time, make the cake the night before and assemble the next day.

Rachel x

Macaroon Madness Continued

I am going to admit, hands down, i have no idea how to correctly spell Macaroon/Macaron?! My spell check just tried to make it macaroni. No almonds in that pasta based dish.

Anyway if you want to confuse yourself and question the spelling even more then try making the damn things. After successfully creating these pesky little treats you can call them maccas for all i bloody care. Im just so happy it worked!

Here are the pics from our successful baking session- as you can see you don't have to follow the colors exactly as the recipes suggest- its a great opportunity to experiment- for the below we used violet grape, tangerine and mulberry food colouring paste, which is stronger and less runny than cheap liquid ones so much safer for mixing into delicate mixtures such as this!

You can also experiment with fillings as much as you like also, for example the chocolate rum ganache for the pink ones didn't set right in the fridge so we used a chocolate cream cheese filling instead! Or you could always use whipped cream or a plain buttercream/frosting and add flavours such as peppermint or lavender and dye your macaroons accordingly!
You can also see from the pics the importance of how thick the mixture is (the purple is thicker therefore made much smaller, puffier macaroons) and the spacing you should allow for them to cook!

We made ginger, blueberry cheescake and chocolate rum flavours-