brownies

Well, here it is, most likely the last post of the year for this particular blog. I can't believe it. The days are long but the years are short. I know that doesn't make any sense, but there you are.
Last week I bought 4 dozen eggs, bringing the total amount of eggs in my fridge to approximately 52. Today I have _3_ eggs in my house. So I must have been busy baking.

I actually didn't make anything special for Christmas. I know, hard to believe. But I was exhausted from work and running around trying to get things together. I feel like I woke up 2 weeks ago and I need to do everything right now.

Christmas dinner went well, except my younger son complained about the Swedish meatballs;) He always says they are terrible and he has to eat them all to save us from them. I did notice he took the leftovers home;)

This week's brownies were fairly straightforward. I "bloomed" the cocoa in the melted butter and added a few Ghiradelli chocolate chips to the melting butter. It gave the brownies a more complex taste, deeper chocolate. SO you know that's good by me.

That's it for me this week. I probably will be cooking chicken and noodles for New Year's Eve dinner. I think my brother and sister-in-law are coming over. I even think my sons might stop by. I might even feel froggy and bring a few rum cakes to work on Thursday....maybe. We'll see.

twas the week before Christmas

and all thru the house, Robin could be heard muttering "it can't be the week before Christmas yet, can it?"
well, it is. And I did bake brownies this week. The only change up this time was I substituted part of the butter for vegetable oil. Seems to have worked out well so far;) The peanut butter chip brownies did not seem to be the hit I thought they should be, or maybe I thought they would be better received by my sons. Oh, well, can't win them all.
I did make 3 fruitcakes this weekend. Don't worry, I'm not giving them to you. Some people like fruitcake, my beloved is one of them. And not I didn't use the Maida Heatter fruitcake recipe. I am always tempted, but somehow the amount of work put into it puts me off of it.


I use this recipe http://pillsburybaking.com/Recipes
/Details.aspx?recipeID=2294&mealtype=
because it easier for me. I use dried fruit (soaked in orange juice) in place of the nuts and I don't put a glaze on it. But you can figure out what you would want to put in it as long as you keep the amount you put in the same.

I still want to bake cookies. Whether I find the time or not, I don't know. I was in the house because of the snow most of the day Saturday but didn't quite get to making cookies. Fruitcakes take a lot of oven time that isn't compatible with cookie making.

I'm sure you're just as busy if not busier than I am, so I'll stop rambling now.
Have a very Merry Christmas!

really slacking

sorry, folks, life got more busy or something. I did bake brownies this week, the "secret ingredient" was peanut butter chips. Interesting taste, good texture but I'm not sure I am that big a fan of peanut butter (yeah, I know, hard to believe)
So I baked a chocolate cheesecake (that didn't crack) and a "Cheeto" cake for Thanksgiving. I also made raspberry junket for my beloved. It comes in a box, it's sort of a cross between pudding and jello.
Than then was a Toys for Tots bake sale. I made a milky way cake and a pound cake. Actually, for some insane reason, I baked the first milky way cake at 450 degrees. The outside of the cake was as black as the bottom of my shoes. The inside was fine and devoured by my beloved. So I made a second milky way cake to take to the bake sale.
If there is another bake sale like this one, I will just donate the money to the cause. I felt everything was underpriced (cookies and cupcakes for a quarter, a slice of cake for a dollar). I think if you want to make money for a charity, you got to sell the stuff like you want to make money. I'm not saying charge a fortune, but seriously, a decorated cupcake for 25 cents?! That's not worth the effort, in my not so humble opinion.
But enough whining. I am trying toplan what I am baking for Christmas. Last year, because I burned up the oven, I baked only a few things. This year, I already have fruitcake (don't cry, I'm not giving you any) and a milky way cake. I am debating whether I want to take a cake into work, I guess it depends on how I feel at the moment. I also want to make some sugar cookies. I have always wanted to try to make a cookie tree, but haven't found the time or the nerve to do so. I have the ingredients, it's just making the time and the effort to do it. It would be cool.
That's it for now, nothing earth shaking, just been really busy at work...

No brownies?!?

Nope, I didn't take the time to make brownies this weekend. I had some left over from last week (I made them on Tuesday night). But I did make stuffing bread, rolls, a chocolate cheesecake and a "Cheeto" cake. I need to take a photo of the chocolate cheesecake, it came out beautifully. It didn't crack and I've had that problem in the past. I made two modifications to what I usually do while baking a cheesecake. The cheesecake was the first thing baked in the oven on Friday and I let it rest inside the oven for a few hours after it baked.
Apparently, I shocked my youngest sister last night. She didn't know I made the "Cheeto" cake from (gasp) a cake mix. Everything else on the table was made from scratch, so what's the big deal? I do use cake mixes, I usually jazz them up some way or another. If you are a fan of cake mixes, I suggest


There are some great ideas for using cake mixes in ways I never thought of. I've been asked "is it really easier to use a cake mix" and my answer is "Depends on what you're tryin to bake". If your kid tells you at bedtime "hey Mom, I promised the teacher you'd bake 3 dozen cupcakes for tomorrow" , the answer is definitely "yes" in my not so humble opinion. Your mileage may vary, but I'm just saying that's what I have done in a situation like that.
For other cakes, you may want to make the traditional chocolate cake with the chocolate icing - or whatever is the tradition in your family.
It's your life and time, so don't stress over it if Mrs Smith makes your pumpkin pies. Just enjoy your holiday in a way that doesn't make you (and the rest of your family) bonkers.
Whoops, I didn't mean to rant. But so many magazines and shows have "How to make this the most memorable Thanksgiving ever" articles, it makes me wonder if they have missed the whole point of Thanksgiving.
_enjoy_

oopsie

For my birthday last week, I baked a milky way cake. Yummers. I also baked a small pan of brownies, nothing special to the mix.
But this week - ahh, this week and next are when cooks are either frazzled or excited. You can either become overwhelmed by the Thanksgiving feast or look at it as a time to break out your new recipes.
Honestly, though, I don't vary much from the Thanksgiving menu. There's turkey and ham, sweet potatoes and mashed, corn and peas and cranberry sauce like my mom always made it. Sometimes she'd even let me make it. It's easy - just open a can of Ocean Spray Cranberry sauce. You could slice it up if you want or make some fancy shapes with it, but it's got to be Ocean Spray because they are the bomb. Don't bother writing me about your great grand-uncle's recipe for homemade cranberry sauce. Not going to listen. I've had homemade cranberry sauce twice and I still wonder what all the fuss is about.
The desserts will be the "usual" - there will chocolate cheesecake per Dan's request, Craig always wants strawberry junket and Will's the variable. This year Will picked the Cheeto cake. I also make bread and try to bake as much as I can in some sort of weird celebration of baking.
My mom worked full time from the time I was 6 months old. Now what does this have to do with cooking? She was, of course, always busy. So as we got older, she'd bake a batch of birthday cakes at one time, despite that the 6 kids had different birth months. But any month is a good month to get a homemade chocolate cake in my humble opinion. So I bake the little Bundt pans of different cakes - chocolate, vanilla, might go for pumpkin this year. And that becomes "birthday cakes" for my sibs and their families. Now some of them do get a cake on their birthdays, some do not (their choice). So this way I get the cakes baked in one fell swoop. And of course, the house smells great.
Anyway, I am off (in more ways than one) to prepping some stuffing bread. That will be the basis of my stuffing on Saturday as well as Thanksgiving. (The extended family comes over on Saturday, the immediate on Thanksgiving - and who else wonders in).

catching up

Sorry for the delay. I have been dragging around with some weird salivary gland infection and my beloved was pretty sick. I presume he had a bad cold, he never went to the doctor for it. He still has that cough, though...
Anyway, 2 weeks ago the "secret ingredient" was 2 tablespoons of frozen concentrated orange juice in place of 1 egg. Last week, the "secret ingredient" was extra vanilla. Both of these recipes got good reviews.
My younger son has been distributing "bonus brownies" to some of his coworkers. The "bonus brownies" are the ones that would be left over at the end of the week. However, he happens to be on vacation this week and his coworkers were questioning how were they going to get their weekly brownie fix. They even suggested that Will made a special trip to work to drop the brownies off.
This week's brownie is 1 less egg and extra vanilla, plus a mix of Hershey and Ghiradelli cocoa. Pretty good. The bread I made was "The Redbook Breadbook"
overnight dinner rolls.

The cake - I made a strawberry pie filling and a tart kind of vanilla cake. The strawberry filling went on top of the cake and my beloved loves it.
Soon, It will time for the biggest baking season of the year - the Thanksgiving to Christmas season. Last Thanksgiving, I had a fire in my oven (my fault) and ended up having no oven until about December 21. I wasn't a happy camper about any of it. I never had an oven fire get out of control like that before and never destroyed a stove before. This year I plan to make sure I have an oven liner for the oven. I'm sure I'll be more aware of what I am doing this year. I felt like I was struggling against a fog of grief last year.
Anyway, that's it for this week.
_enjoy_

this week

I tried something new this week - I made German raisin bread. I've never made raisin bread before. It tastes pretty good and I'm not a big fan of raisins.
I also made a raspberry jelly roll - the "Joy of Cooking"'s recipe. I have to remember to get the wider Reynolds Wrap for the jelly roll pan. That would make it easier to transfer the cake to the towel.
I also made a pumpkin cheesecake bar. It was on the back of the box for the pumpkin bread. I didn't realize I didn't buy any pureed pumpkin until too late (I forgot again today) and I had a hankering for pumpkin.
Last week's brownies were quite the hit. Will made sure he got the remaining brownies on Thursday "so they don't go to waste". So this week I used the basic Hershey recipe using the Ghiradelli cocoa, the normal amount of eggs and butter with one addition - a very ripe banana. That seems to give the brownies a more cake like consistency.
I finally dumped out my sourdough starter. it had mold growing on top of it. I don't think sourdough is my thing but darned if I don't see another recipe for sourdough and start thinking "I could do that". I'm still thinking about it...

baking action this week

Let's see, it's a bit of comedy of errors;) I made popovers again and I used cake flour. However, I did not compensate for the difference in weight between cake and all purpose flour and the popovers didn't. They still tasted good, but they were sort of muffiny.
As for the brownies....I used 1/2 cup applesauce to replace 1/2 cup butter. They came out cakey. Then I added a topping - the "Mississippi Mud" frosting from Paula Deen. I think it's a bit too heavy for the brownies. However, Will did manage to say "it's a bit too much" while eating the brownie, so there you are.
I made the raspberry puff pastries from the King Arthur folks. It turned out great. This time, I cooked the raspberries for the filling. I do need to seal the pastry properly because the filling spills out. It was still pretty good.
No cakes this week. Hmm, I must be slipping.....

late posting

I baked last weekend, but I probably wasn't 100%. I made oatmeal raisin cookies for my honey - and they turned out lacelike. Still tasted good, but very thin. I think the dough was too wet.
Then I made brownies - the same brownies I've made a gazillion times and I made a mistake. I put a half a teaspoon of baking _soda_ in instead of baking _powder_. I baked them anyway, but they didn't seem to rise as much. However, all were eaten so it must have been good.
Then for my 26th wedding anniversary, I decided to make a special meal at home - center cut boneless pork chops (one of the honey's faves), a baked potato, corn on the cob and popovers. I haven't made them for a long time and I had to retrieve the pan from where I had stored it. So far, so good. I used "The Joy of Cooking" recipe for popovers, it's my favorite. They rose just fine, browned nicely... and the bottoms stuck to the pan. *sigh* I guess I didn't have my baking mojo this week or something. But they still tasted good. I will really have to grease those pans down the next time I use them.
Right now I'm thinking about making the puff pastry from the "Baking Sheet" - that worked out well for me. before. Or maybe I should open a box of Pillsbury crescent rolls, maybe I won't mess that up.
_enjoy_

the baking action

Not too much this week, I'm afraid. I was very sluglike this weekend. I made brownies, with 5 eggs instead of 6 and a heaping tablespoon of Ghiradelli unsweetened cocoa added to the Nestle's cocoa I've been using. I also added a bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips to the batter. I thought about topping it with chocolate frosting, but I decided it would be _too_much_chocolate_. I know, who would guess that I'd think something had too much chocolate?
And I made a blondie, which really just looks like a giant chocolate chip cookie pressed into a brownie pan. And that's what it tastes like. My younger son Will claims he's never had a blondie before, so once he has one, he won't be able to say that anymore.
That's it for now....

Pineapple Cake Crisis and baking action this week

First, the pineapple cake crisis. Last Sunday, I made a pineapple pound cake from "The Baking Sheet" and took it to work. No special occasion, just felt like taking a cake to work. I get into work about 6:30am and put the cake on the table. Not a big production, just what I normally do when I bring a cake in.
About 8:45am, the cake was gone. Just a few crumbs remained where there once was a cake. I always believed in "first come first serve" and wasn't that concerned about it. I found out that not everyone feels the same way I do about "first come first serve".
Three of my coworkers came in after the cake had been devoured, one of which happened to be my supervisor. Well, that didn't work so well for me. She gave me the cold shoulder treatment as well as the hairy eyeball. Oh well, I've been ignored before so I wasn't impressed.
But on Tuesday night, I made 2 more pineapple pound cakes, split one onto 2 small (6 cup) Bundt pans and one went in my regular tube pan. I took them in Wednesday and guess what? My supervisor talked to me like I was her long lost best friend;) It's silly but there you are.

For baking action this week, I made the brownies with Nestle cocoa using the Hershey recipe. I cut out 1 egg and didn't replace it with any other liquid. I mixed frozen mini-marshmallows into the batter. I thought about putting icing on them but I got too lazy to do that. They taste pretty good, nice and fudgy and the marshmallows are a good touch.

For my honey, I made him a pineapple pound cake. I guess the whole house smelling like pineapples was an influence.

That's it for baking. I didn't make any bread (too humid), but maybe next week - or not...

Have a good week.

hot & humid

That's not only the weather outside but the weather in my kitchen;)

I didn't bake too much this weekend. It was, of course, hot and humid and work kicked my butt. So I used the "usual" Hershey recipe except a couple of tweaks. I added the cocoa in with the melted butter and sugar mixture to start with instead of later with the flour. I substituted 2 tablespoons of milk for 1 egg. I also threw part of a candy bar in with the melted butter, a Ghiradelli candy bar that has orange in it. Not the whole thing, maybe about a quarter of the candy bar. The brownies have a soft but not wet texture and a good chocolate taste. I'm still using the Nestle's cocoa because I still have a lot of it left.

I made the pineapple pound cake (from "The Baking Sheet" to take to work. I don't know why I'm taking it to work, I guess it's because last week was ugly and all of us need a little cheering up. Or fattening up, I don't know which;)

I didn't make any bread this week. Just didn't feel like it. Maybe next week I will. In a few weeks, the heat and humidity will be almost over with and I might feel like baking bread then.

Take care.

8/16/09 baking

It is hot and humid now in my part of the world, but that's the way it is usually this time of year. Here's the breakdown on all the excitement in baking this week.

It was a rough week at work, a lot of drama and of course, coming back from vacation. So Thursday night, I baked a vanilla cake with chocolate frosting. Turned out pretty good.My sons came over on Saturday and ate some of the cake.

The brownies this week was the "usual" Hershey's recipe - but I browned the butter in a frying pan, than mixed the cocoa with it. It seemed to make the brownies chewier with just a slightly richer taste.

The cake this week - it's a vanilla cake that is flavored with seedless raspberry jam as well as raspberry extract. The frosting....well, that's sort of a swiss meringue type (at least that's what Martha Stewart calls it). It's a mixture between a 7 minute boiled frosting and buttercream. I added the raspberry flavoring to the frosting as well. The frosting was very runny. I don't know if it was the humidity or the heat, but it just ran off the spatula and down the counter onto the floor. I wasn't too thrilled about that, but it was easy to clean up. I put the frosted cake in the fridge so maybe the frosting will set up there. At least I hope so. I did remember to put a bigger plate under the cake so I wouldn't have to hose frosting out of my fridge. That wouldn't have made me happy.

I also made my brother a cake for his "cake of the month". It's a pineapple pound cake with pineapple glaze. I made the regular size Bundt pan as making 2 small cakes doesn't work. I end up giving one cake to the birds. So he will either have to take it to work and share it or freeze it. I will be making the traditional birthday cake for him this week - maybe. Two cakes in a week might be too much.

Poop! I forgot to get sour cream when Iwas at the grocery store. I was planning to make more puff pastry. I'll just try to remember next time I'm shopping.

Gee, I hope they make a movie of this blog;) I could use the money. I wonder is Roseanne Barr would play me?

Later

baking action 8/9/09

I wasn't cooking most of the week because I was on vacation, but I hate to admit that I missed it. I didn't miss not doing dishes, though.

This week in the brownie baking, I used the "standard" Hershey recipe but I melted the butter and mixed the cocoa with it. I like the taste and texture of that particular procedure. Everything else was the usual except I substituted 1 very ripe banana for 1 egg. The brownies have a slight banana taste and a fudgey texture. I also just remembered I forgot to put the vanilla extract in. Oh well, it worked anyway.

My yeast experiment this week did not go so well. I tried to make yeasted doughnuts from Favorite Breads from Rose Lane Farm but I must have done something wrong or it was just too hot. The dough smelled more like alcohol and I didn't bake with it. I think the yeast bloomed out too quick or I made a mistake in the directions. I buried it in the back yard;) I will try again next weekend to make the doughnuts. Not a good batting average on doughnuts so far - two strikes. I made the fried kind quite a few years ago. They turned out horrible looking and tasting. I was going to toss them but my younger son wasn't home yet and he knew I was making doughnuts. He saw them and thought they were chocolate covered, that's how bad they looked. My dad used to make doughnuts in a huge cast iron skillet. Our dog, King, would stay in the kitchen watching the doughnut production. Once in a while, Dad's fork (that's what he used to pick up the doughnuts) would slip and a doughnut would hit the floor. King would run over, grab the doughnut and take it back to his original spot. He'd wait patiently for the doughnut to cool off enough so he could eat it. He had more sense than my siblings and I - we'd try to eat it hot.

As for the cake this week, I had thought about making a pineapple pound cake. But there was a good price on strawberries at the grocery store, so I bought them. Now, my idea of strawberry shortcake is as follows - mashed sweetened berries, a biscuit/scone like flat piece and having the biscuit soak up the strawberry juice. Yummers.
But I was making a cake for my beloved and that's not what he's used to. So I made the vanilla cake, sliced up strawberries and put them on top. I did make a major error on that, too. I over filled the cake pan I was using. Luckily, I had enough sense to put a cookie sheet under the pan. I thought I would need the "jaws of life" to get the cake out of the pan, but it came out easily once the overflow part was cut away. Even the overflow part tasted good.

That's it for this week.I thought Iwas going to bake more, but I sort of pooped out (it is August, after all).
Have a good week.

today....

Today the brownies were the regular Hershey recipe, but I did something a little different. I read 2 recipes in the last week about how the butter is melted and the cocoa mixed into the butter before it's added to the sugar. So I though, what the heck, why not. So I did that and I think I am on to something. The brownies have a great texture, not too wet and not to dry. They seem to be more chocolately, too. I'll have to check with my guinea pig, I mean, my son, tomorrow. About 20 minutes into the baking, I put some frozen mini marshmellows on top of the batter. The marshmellows melted, but it looks as if I put oyster crackers on the top.
The bread this week is from The Redbook Breadbook, the overnight dinner roll recipe. It was
my first bread book and the one I use a lot of the time. I made the coffecake from the Martha Stewart's Everyday Food. I also made a Paula Deen recipe, it's her "ooey gooey butter cake" to take to work (they are having a potluck thing) . It's from her specialty magazine. the summer one. There are quite a few other recipes I want to try in that magazine.
Next week I think it will be a peach cake for Father's Day for my beloved. Peach flavored, peaches on it and peach buttercream icing. It could work...

and in today's baking....

The brownies were made with 1 overripe mashed banana. It gives it a slight banana flavor as well as making the texture more cake like.
The cake for my beloved this week is a Mountain Dew cake, with the recipe from the current Paula Deen specialty magazine. It probably would be more lemony if I had used lemon pudding instead of vanilla.
My brother's cake for this month - German chocolate cake with the coconut pecan frosting from the Trisha Yearwood cookbook Georgia Cooking in an Oklahoma Kitchen .

I want to bake more but it's a little hot and humid right now. So I'll have to be satisfied with what I've done....

June 1

Today I just made a single batch of the Hershey Cocoa's brownies. Nothing tricked out, no special flavor added, just plain old brownies. I can't say either Will or Dan noticed the peanut butter except after I mentioned it.
This week I made my beloved his birthday cake. He likes a yellow cake filled with strawberry Bavarian cream. I uses the "best vanilla cake recipe" in the special cake pans. And I used Jello's recipe of Bavarian cream. The cake did not really stand up to the pan. I should have used shortening to grease it instead of Pam or maybe the vanilla cake is not really meant to be used as a filled cake. It fell apart while I was taking it out of the pans.
The Bavarian cream - it separated into 2 distinct parts. The top was strawberry Jello with the Cool Whip and the strawberries. The bottom was just the strawberry Jello. I'm not sure exactly what I did wrong there - maybe it should have cooled off more? I think next year I will go back to the old "gold cake" recipe I generally use and use "The Joy of Cooking"'s Bavarian cream recipe. I will tell you that my beloved loved it and ate it, so I did something right.

cake pan addict

I hate to admit this, but I love cake pans. I even bought a lion cake pan to make a cake for my beloved, but I haven't used it yet. I really don't understand the fascination - it's not like I don't have the basic 9x13 pan or the 8 inch round pans. But when I see the novelty pans...I want them. I have cake pans shaped like Christmas trees, sunflowers and hearts. Really, how many do I really need? Plus the truth is the novelty cake pans are good for basic cakes, nothing with any sort of additives (such as Milky Ways) because the stick to the crevices...
Anyway, this week's brownies wil have a half a cup of peanut butter in them. It should be interesting and my older son Dan should like it. He loves the Reese's Peanut Butter cups. The cake this week - a lemon one with lemon buttercream frosting. I am using the "Woman's Day" recipe quite a bit. The buttercream frosting is so light and fluffy and I'm not normally a fan of buttercream.
Later this week is my beloved's birthday and I will making him a cake filled with strawberry Bavarian cream. That usually works out well except if it's too hot and humid. we shall see.

I thought I'd put this link in here. If you love chocolate as I do , you'll appreciate this particular contest:
Click here: Mars Real Chocolate Relief Act

ahhh

I skipped last week because it was Mother's Day. My sons were on vacation and I hadn't planned to make any brownies, but who am I kidding? I love brownies myself.
So I made 1 batch of brownies, using crushed pecans as well as Godiva's Chocolate Liquer in lieu of vanilla for flavoring. They were _excellent_.
My Mother's Day cake was a lemon cake with lemon curd filling and lemon buttercream frosting. It also was excellent.
I didn't make any bread last week, didn't get around to it. This week I did, I made rolls from Bea Tom's cookbook. They are alleged to be the best rolls ever. They definitely had a quick rise to them. But I wasn't that impressed with them and neither was my beloved. They tasted sort of like fresher "brown and serve" rolls to me. Good, but not great in my opinion. And I had to alter the recipe a little, but that could just be differences in ingredients and weather. I had to add about one half cup more liquid to make the dough actually take shape.
The cake for my beloved last week was coffee cake. This week it is a black raspberry jelly roll. I need to practice more with the jelly roll. I managed to get it in a roll without too much fuss, but it's been a quite a few months since I made one. I'll have to try to make jelly rolls a little more frequently.
The brownies this week? The "normal" Hershey's recipe, nothing special added or subtracted.
later....

May Fourth (be with you)

Awful pun, isn't it? I just had to share it.

This week's brownies were made the "normal" way with 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce standing in for 1/2 cup butter. I used all Hershey Cocoa this time. I love the texture and the taste. Ooops, almost forgot. I grated a part of a bar of Ghiradelli's Cark Chocolate with the citrus flavoring in with the brownie batter. It turned out great. No "yums" from my son, however.
I received one of those "add beer" bread mixes. I'm not really a drinker, so I added 12 ounces of orange soda instead. It was okay, but not really outstanding. As much as those mixes go for, it should knock my socks off but I can't say it did.
And yet another "oops". I made baking powder biscuits - I put regular milk in instead of buttermilk. The biscuits still rose, still had the same texture, just a slightly different taste. What was I thinking? TOss me out of the "southern cooks class"...
My beloved's cake was the "best vanilla cake" in the recent "Woman's Day" issue, with the "best vanilla buttercream". "Woman's Day" recipe uses 1 jat of Marshmellow Fluff to give the frosting a wonderful light flavor. I kept the cake vanilla, but I made the frosting raspberry flavored. It turned out pretty good.
I also made a chocolate chip cake. That's because I was too lazy to make chocolate chip cookies. It worked out pretty well, I think. I took it into work and they loved it.
Wonder if I'll bake next weekend with it being Mother's Day and all that?

about this week's brownies

I was so surprised to hear my younger son Will say "yum" when he ate the brownie. He actually noticed the flavoring. I found it so hard to believe, I hard to post it;)

Oh, by the way, nobody has claimed the Rose Levy Berenbaum book - it's still up for grabs.....