The Cobbler's Kids Brownies

You know the saying, "The cobbler's kids have no shoes". He was too busy with his real customers. We all know a good cobbler would do a little bartering and get his kids shoes. Maybe not custom made for them, but shoes, none the less. My family lives this saying. The food blogger mom, who makes hundreds of cookies, but is sometimes too tired to cook real food, or, gasp, has no sweets in the house for them. What? No rejects? Not one cookie in the freezer, (which holds hundreds), can be given to a sugar craving family member? Well, no. Get over it. I have a million cookbooks, bake something. I admit, I usually have a box of Duncan Hines on hand for these types of melt downs, but I was unarmed when Mr. Sad Face started rummaging (that chaos in the pantry is my order!), looking for brownie mix. I diverted his man-handling my numerous types of flour, by agreeing to bake him brownies.

If there was a Duncan Hines lurking in the pantry, anyone in my family would just bake them up. I usually do a little doctoring, adding sour cream, chocolate chips, nuts whatever is on hand. But I had no easy mix today. So naturally, when I grabbed the box of Guittard Semisweet Chocolate Wafers, I knew I would never actually follow their recipe on the back of the box. If I baked the Guittard brownie recipe with orange zest, cranberries and almonds, I would be a happy baker. My family would feel betrayed. There are a few things I am not allowed to "fancy up". There are links to some of my favorite ingredients that you may not be familiar with, things I like to use and write about. So here's what I did.

Cobbler's Brownies (adapted from E. Guittard)
1 1# box E. Guittard Semisweet Chocolate Wafers
¼ cup (½ stick) unsalted butter
¼ cup buttermilk
4 large eggs, room temperature
1⅓ cups sugar
1 Tablespoon Trablit
½ teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons vanilla paste
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 cup pecans (I love Landgraf Pecans from Oklahoma)

Preheat oven to 325° (I set to 315° because I use convection). Spray a 9X13 pan.
Heat chocolate, butter and buttermilk in double boiler until melted and well mixed. Remove from heat and set aside.
In a mixing bowl, beat the eggs and sugar until pale and thick. Add vanilla paste, Trablit and salt. Mix and add melted chocolate and mix thoroughly. Add the flour and mix until combined. Mix in pecans and put into prepared pan and bake about 25-30 minutes. The top will be shiny with a thin crust on it. The soft center will solidify as it cools. Whatever you do, do not over bake these. What a waste of a pound of chocolate that would be! Cool a good 2 hours before cutting. They are delicious cold!You can look at it this way. The cobbler uses only the finest materials (ingredients) for his paying customers to maintain his high standards. So when he breaks down and makes those shoes for his kids(brownies in my case) he uses those top-shelf ingredients. Just so they know, they may feel like they are not the number one priority, but in fact they are the reason for everything we do, including just breathing. So, what are you waiting for? Get in there and bake.

Chocolate Mocha Cupcakes

Jeez, you'd think I was hormonal with all these chocolate posts! But here we go again! We had a fundraising event for Project Graduation, and played Tournament Whist! I really thought about making sugar cookies with the card suits on them, but I had a busy week. And as it turned out, another sugar cookie baker did! Then my friend's birthday was the day before, and her very favorite Sweetie is chocolate cupcakes with mocha buttercream. So why not?!

Chocolate Cupcakes
⅔ cup flour
2 ½ Tablespoons Pernigotti Cocoa
¾ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
3 oz. bittersweet chocolate, chopped
11 Tablespoons unsalted butter
¾ cup plus 2 Tablespoons Sugar
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 Tablespoon Trablit or strong espresso

Preheat oven to 350° ( I drop it to 340° because I use convection). Whisk first 4 ingredients in a bowl. Melt the chocolate and butter either in a double boiler or gently in microwave. Stir until smooth and allow to cool for about 10 minutes so your eggs won't scramble in it. Add the eggs, one at a time, stirring well after each. Add vanilla and espresso and fold into he flour mixture without over mixing. Fill cupcake liners and bake around 12 minutes for minis and 20 for regular size cupcakes. Keep an eye on them, you do not want to overbake. Cool completely before frosting. Makes 5 dozen minis.

Mocha Buttercream
4 oz. unsweetened chocolate
2 teaspoons instant espresso powder
11 Tablespoons unsalted butter at room temp
2 cups powdered sugar
⅓ cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla (I also add a teaspoon of Trablit)

Melt the butter carefully in microwave. Mix in espresso powder and set aside. Beat butter with mixer until fluffy and add cooled chocolate and mix well. Add powdered sugar and milk alternately. Add vanilla and Trablit and mix until smooth and frosting consistency.

Frost cooled cupcakes, and call Diane. These are her favorite! Trust me, baking is way more fun when you do it for someone who truly appreciates it. So, get in there!

Chocolate Deadlies

I like chocolate. Really. But as I have gotten older I don't love it like I did. Maybe it's just the kind of chocolate, the cheap milk variety seems to make my teeth ache. M&Ms, Kisses, that sort of thing just doesn't have the appeal. I do love a square of 85% with a glass of cabernet, and I would rather that than a brownie. Strange how our tastes seem to change. I baked up a sugar cookie order last week for the Trinity soccer team (hence the soccer ball cookies) in town to play and the mom asked for a little chocolate something. Hmmm. Cupcakes seemed to fussy, brownies never seem to cut nicely, what could I do in a large batch that would be delicious and easy? Chocolate Deadlies.

This is a recipe my friend Melinda makes, and my daughter proclaimed them to be like Grandma's Brownies in a cup. Grandma's Brownies are a family favorite around here, and are known better as Texas Sheet Cake. Melinda makes the Deadlies a lot, and so I inquired about the recipe. Thankfully she had them on her computer and could shoot it to me while she was traveling. This recipe is so easy, way easier than Grandma's Brownies. You can whip up 48 in mini muffin cups in no time flat. The icing gets a little firm on top keeping the cake part moist and delicious.

I searched around the internet and it seems that the Deadlies are from a Junior League cookbook from Little Rock. I do not own this book so I can't tell you if the recipe has been modified from the original. I can tell you that even a non chocolate girl like me can appreciate the cocoa goodness of these babies. Perfect for a crowd. Go on, it's getting cooler outside, get in there and bake!

Chocolate Deadlies
3 sqs unsweetened chocolate
1 C butter
2C sugar
1 1/3 C flour
2 tsp vanilla
4 eggs, beaten


Melt butter & chocolate in double boiler over low hear. Remove from heat. Add sugar, flour, vanilla and eggs. Fill mini muffin liners ½ full. This is important, if you overfill, the frosting will ooze everywhere!
Bake at 350 for 12-15 minutes.

Ice while hot

4 T butter
2 sqs unsweetened chocolate
4 C powdered sugar
½ C cold coffee (I used Trablit and water to make ½ cup)

While deadlies bake, melt butter & chocolate. Remove from heat and add sugar. Add enough coffee to make mixture smooth. Spoon on hot Deadlies.

I put a pecan half on top of some of the Deadlies, but they are perfect unadorned as well!

Daring Baker's English Pudding

The April 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Esther of The Lilac Kitchen. She challenged everyone to make a traditional British pudding using, if possible, a very traditional British ingredient: suet.

Okay, so I can't hide my disappointment. I have been a DB for a year and haven't yet made anything with yeast. I have made some great challenges, puff pastry, tuilles, nanaimo bars, but no yeasty goodness. I skipped, unintentionally mind you, February which was Tiramisu, which I love but just couldn't make all those components with my travels to my parents. Then came some sort of Citrus Tart that no one would eat but me, and I had a thousand cookies to decorate. So...here we are on the cusp of getting booted if we don't get baking. And this month's challenge is English Pudding.

It was quite a shock when I read the beginning of the recipe and saw suet. I have no doubt that this fat makes an amazingly flaky crust, and it is obviously a very British ingredient. But there was no way I could go there. Suet is for birds. It is the white fat found in sheep and cows and it surrounds the kidneys and loins. 'Nuf said. Call me closed minded, I can live with that, I suspect it is not monounsaturated fat. We would roll it in seeds and make bird feeders in those cold Iowa winters. I just couldn't eat it. And I am fairly certain I could never find it in Memphis without a special order. So as I watched people post thier puddings in the forum I was delighted to discover a steamed chocolate pudding made with butter and chocolate. BINGO! Something I can easily track the nutrition of, something I can portion control, and most importantly something that will make Christina sing with joy!

Steamed Chocolate Pudding
2 oz. bittersweet chocolate
1 T butter
8 oz flour (225g)
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
pinch salt
1 egg
4 oz sugar (120g)
120 ml milk with 1 teaspoon vanilla
MY ADDITION: 1 Tablespoon Trablit coffee extract


It calls for a 1.5 pint pudding basin. Basically 6 cups, but I chose ramekins, they need to be lightly greased, I used butter. Melt chocolate and butter. Sift flour, baking powder and salt together. Beat egg and slowly add sugar, beating until creamy. Add melted chocolate. Stir in dry ingredients alternately with milk and vanilla/Trablit. Fill ramekins ⅔ full. Cover ramekins tightly with foil or greaseproof paper, which would be parchment, and secure with string. I did that to 2, but after wrestling the paper, I decided to foil the other 2.

Put into pot and immerse into water halfway up the sides. Boil and then simmer for 1½ hours. I simmered only an hour because I used ramekins instead of a pudding basin. Yum. Like a hot cake?! A little whipped cream and chocolate covered espresso bean garnish.
My biggest LeCrueset only held 4 ramekins, so I took the extra batter and baked it. Heck, what's the worst thing that could happen, right? It is like a sponge cake, and has great flavor and texture. I like it!


I got this pudding recipe here. Easy for sure, and no suet! The Trablit can be found here at Surfas, great LA store, actually in Culver City...
And the nutritional info? Well, the whole recipe is 1811 calories, 41 grams of fat, 39 grams of protein and 333 carbs. When you divide it by 6, it really isn't awful. Not exactly the true British Steamed Pudding with a Suet Crust, but a fair attempt and a delicious one at that.

The Daring Baker's Cheesecake

The April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge.
Let me put this right out front. I don't like cheesecake. I don't know why, I really think it is a texture thing. It is generally so dense and other times almost fluffy like a thick mousse. If someone should order it, I'll taste, but it really is the one dessert I can walk away from. Except this month. It is the Daring Baker's Challenge. As I have reported before, this very large group of bloggers is given the challenge at the first of the month. We dwell on it secretly all month, and then as reveal date approaches, I panic because life can get crazy busy. So, for the second month in a row, I am baking the day of the reveal. My daughter is SO excited. She is the one who orders cheesecake at every restaurant. Can I compare to her high standards? Only one way to find out!

The Daring Baker's gives us the recipe every month, and we generally aren't allowed to make any changes. This month the recipe is plain and we are challenged to make it unique. So I merged my favorite cheesecake recipe (yes, even a non eater like me knows what's good!) and made a Chocolate Mocha Cheesecake. My recipe is at least 18 years old. It originally came from Williams Sonoma although I doubt it is hanging out in any archives because it calls for a coffee extract called Trablit. It is a fantastic product they quit carrying around 1997. I recently found it at an L.A. store called Surfas, along with many other of my favorite Williams Sonoma discontinued items. Perhaps you can't get your hands on Trablit, or don't want the large bottle offered online, you can make your own so to speak. One option is to use instant espresso powder and dissolve in water to make a dark concentrate or use Kahlua for a more subtle flavor, but I can't say either will taste as good as the real thing. If you do go for the Trablit, try it in a little warm milk...delicious! So what follows is a merged recipe. It is delicious, even for a non cheesecake girl like me. I think part of my liking this version better than a traditional cheesecake is that this is only a pound of cream cheese, where as many are a pound and a half. I used light sour cream and I think that keeps the texture a little lighter on the tongue. The crust as an after note, could seriously be made with closer to 3 cups of grahams. I added the additional almond meal for a little "good fat", but still the crust was lower than the cheesecake batter.

Chocolate Mocha Cheesecake
CRUST
2 cups graham cracker crumbs
¼ cup almond meal (Trader Joe's)
1 stick butter, melted
2 T. sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract.

Line the outside of a Springform pan with foil, shiny side out. Butter the inside of the pan. Mix ingredients and press into the bottom and up the sides of Springform pan. I am using an 8" pan. Put crust in fridge while you make the cheesecake.

FILLING
5 oz. bittersweet chocolate, chopped
3 T. rum or other liquor
1 pound cream cheese
4 eggs
1/2 cup sour cream
3/4 cup sugar
1 T Trablit.

Melt chocolate over simmering water with rum. Set aside. In bowl of electric mixer beat cream cheese until fluffy. Beat in eggs one at a time and then sour cream and sugar. Add Trablit and mix well. Divide the batter into 2 bowls. To one mixture add the chocolate/rum mixture. Layer the chocolate batter first and carefully top with the coffee only mixture.


Place cheesecake pan in lager roasting pan and pour boiling water up to the halfway point of the cheesecake pan. Carefully bake for about 50 minutes. You want a little jiggle in the middle and a little more done around the edges. Turn off oven and leave cake in oven for about another hour. Remove from water bath and chill fully before serving.


To serve. I make a whipped cream scented with Trablit and a little powdered sugar. Garnish with chocolate covered espresso beans. That's it! Delicious! Get in there and cook!