Chunky Walnut Brownies

I don't think I've ever lived through a colder winter than this year's. It's pretty crazy. I remember teasing my sister for having to deal with Hanover's brutally long, cold, and snowy winters, and now I'm having to deal with them myself.  Karma, I guess? I don't think I really deserve it, and even if I do, this is just too much.  Seriously, it's beyond cold and despite the birds chirping outside my bedroom window at 6:30 in the morning (how are they even alive?!), it doesn't look like spring is coming anytime soon. All I can do now is keep warm as best I can and thank my lucky stars that I invested in my L.L. Bean parka last year (I thought it was excessive and had buyer's remorse for a while, because when does it ever get that cold in NYC, right?).

Since its been so cold lately, all I seem to want to make right now are really quick and easy comfort treats (this dulce de leche cake being a notable exception). All I want are giant chocolate chip cookies and hot fudge sundaes and warm brownies...BROWNIES! I hadn't made a batch of brownies in an awfully long time, and they seemed like exactly the type of indulgent comfort food I was craving. There's just something about brownies that makes them completely irresistible. I had that initial spark, and there was no doubt about it. I needed a big pan of brownies.

Salted Caramel and Pecan Blondies

My weekend mornings typically consist of either baking up a storm in my kitchen for the blog, or heading to the gym to get my workout done and out of the way, so that I can come home and do some baking.  It's been my routine for the past year or so now that I've been living at home from college, and for the most part, it typically works.  There are, of course, weekends where I break out of my routine because I have something special planned and I neither bake nor workout, or because I've somehow managed to bake ahead so far in advance that I can give myself a weekend off from my kitchen. Weekends off are nice.  I love working for the blog, but every now and then, it's nice to know that I can wake up late and just chill, because my recipes and photos for the upcoming week are already taken care of. 

Weekends where I'm off because I've planned ahead don't happen as often as I would like them to, sadly.  I try to plan ahead, I really do, but it just doesn't always happen.  I keep a little notebook full of random ideas that pop into my head so that I can bake and post them, but the problem is that my little notebook gets a little too full at times.  There's too many random ideas, and since I like to keep things seasonal, I typically have more seasonal treat ideas than I can reasonably prepare, photograph, and write about by the time the season ends. For instance, I know that I really need to do a post on apples, because what's more fall-appropriate than an apple? The problem is that I just can't decide which of the ten apple ideas I have written down to actually make.  This situation happens more often than I'd like, which usually leaves me having to bake every weekend. I don't mind it, honestly, but this past weekend, I was just not having it.  The weather was awful (it was cold and rainy), and I went to bed the night before knowing that the next day would be gray and miserable.  I think that made me wake up on Saturday and just want to crawl back into bed and sleep all day, because I consider that the best way to spend a rainy Saturday.  

Artpark Brownies

I've been working on making some changes in my life.  The biggest, and change I'm most nervous and excited about, is my recent career change.  I've been feeling a little ambivalent about architecture lately.  I still love architecture and design, and I think I always will.  At the same time, however, this little interest I have for food and writing and such has been growing more and more over the last few months.  It's grown so much, that the thought of going back to graduate school to study architecture was just not sitting well with me anymore.  I figured that the best course of action would be to step aside from architecture for a bit and try something new for a while.  I embraced this decision whole-heartedly, and I actually landed a job at Random House, to work with the Clarkson Potter editorial team. I started this week, and while it's a major change, it's a change I'm very happy with so far.  I can't say I'm completely sure I know what I'm doing or where I'm planning on going with all of this, because I don't know, but I'm excited to find out and see what happens.

I've been reading a lot more food-related books lately, and I'm hoping to grow a nice little collection to match my growing cookbook collection.  One of the books I recently finished reading is Tender at the Bone: Growing Up at the Table.  In this book, Ruth Reichl, a well-known food writer, shares memorable moments from her life and details how she came to love food.  The book is charming and funny, and makes you love food just as much as she does.  Scattered throughout her stories are the recipes from the defining moments in her life, and the recipe for these Artpark Brownies caught my eye immediately.  Ruth's brownies were known for being "the best in the world," so I knew that this was one recipe I had to try for myself.

Cherry Breakfast Bars

Here is cherry treat number two!  I never thought I'd be posting two recipes containing cherries back to back, but here I am.  While I loved both cherry treats I made over the weekend, I'm back to enjoying cherries fresh off the stem.  I don't need to go back and explain my love affair with fresh cherries all over again, so let's move on to these Cherry Breakfast Bars, shall we?

The name of these bars might be a little misleading- they're not really breakfasty.  I mean, they can definitely be enjoyed for breakfast, and I'm not going to deny that I ate a bar one morning alongside a glass of orange juice and called it a meal, but I think they're best enjoyed later in the afternoon, or ideally, as a midnight snack.  I suppose they're called "breakfast" bars because they have oats in them...which is reason enough.  Sounds good to me! These breakfast bars are from one of my favorite cookbooks ever, written by the wonderful Matt and Renato over at Baked in Red Hook (I still haven't been there, but it has become my mission to make it over to Red Hook one weekend before summer is over to have pupusas for lunch at the ball fields and then a giant brownie at Baked for dessert, because that just sounds like the most splendid day ever).  I've become a much bigger fan of bar cookies in recent weeks; it wasn't so much that I didn't like them as much as the fact that they just didn't occur to me as naturally as regular cookies did.  Bar cookies are perfect for summertime baking because they're always easy to assemble, yield a ton, and can last a decent amount of time, making them a great option for summer picnics and barbecues.  When your cookie bars are filled with delicious and fresh summer fruit, they're even more perfect! The breakfast bars from the Baked cookbook use fresh raspberries, but I thought that making a cherry version would be a fun twist on an already delicious recipe.  

Double Berry Crumb Bars

Happy Friday, everyone! Happy May, too!  Apparently, there's lots to be happy about.  The fact that we've finally reached the weekend, the sun is actually shining, and we're just a month closer to reaching summer are all things that make me smile, and hopefully they make you happy too. Hopefully everyone has something awesome planned for their weekend.  I'm having the Fried Chicken Dinner at Momofuku Noodle Bar, and I am SO SO SO excited about it.  I've been wanting to go for the longest time, and the fact that I finally, through sheer luck and persistence, managed to get a reservation at a normal dinner hour.  The trick is, in case anyone is interested, is to literally be sitting in front of your computer at 9:59 AM and keep hitting refresh until reservations open at 10, and then click as fast as you can.  It's nothing revolutionary, but it worked.  In addition to my Momofuku adventure, my sister is coming home from college for the weekend, and we have planned to have a muffin and pancake extravaganza.  Muffins, pancakes, fried chicken, and Momofuku desserts are some of my favorite things ever, so this weekend is looking like it will be something really, really great. 

If you're still figuring out how to make your weekend into something really great, I have a really good suggestion for you.  This weekend is supposed to be BEAUTIFUL out (at least Saturday in New York is), so why not plan an easy casual picnic and whip up some Double Berry Crumb Bars for dessert?  I have loved the idea of picnic meals for as long as I can remember, and I'm going to make sure I have as many picnic outings as I can during what's left of spring and all of summer.  They're so relaxed and casual, and there's something so great about enjoying a meal outside under a nice breeze.  Picnic meals require special foods that are easy to transport and easy to serve, and bar cookies are one of those items that fully satisfy both requirements.  Brownies, blondies, and lemon squares are classic bar cookie favorites, but I wanted something different that really screamed, "SPRING IS HERE!"  There's no better bar cookie for the job than one that is really just a berry crumble pie in disguise.  I'm talking about a bar cookie with a buttery shortbread crust, a juicy and fruity center layer, and a sweet, buttery crumb topping.  Hungry yet?  I sure am!

PB+J Blondies

Hello, hello, hello!  The blog has been a bit quiet this week...much too quiet for my personal liking, but this little thing called life has been getting in the way.  You see, work has been busy and I've been getting home late. Then, since we're getting closer and closer to summer and I happen to run a blog that features desserts that emphasize the use of real butter, sugar, and chocolate in generous amounts, I've been kicking it into high gear at the gym during the week after work.  My attempts at getting to the gym after work have me coming home sometimes at 9:30 at night, and after I scarf down a quick dinner, it's time for my favorite activity of all, GRE prep. I can't even tell you how many irrelevant new vocabulary words that I will never ever use I've had to learn, and how much I can't wait until this stupid test is finished with.  There's literally only four weeks left until it's over and done with, so the end is near!  After doing an hour of GRE prep a few times a night, I'm usually pretty pooped and ready to just go to bed, meaning that my blog work has been taking a back seat.  Good thing I also caught the spring cleaning bug and have been doing lots of random projects in my bedroom, as if work, the gym, and GRE work weren't enough.  But I digress.  I've been busy, and I've missed getting to work on the blog.   

Fortunately, there's only a month left until the GRE is over with, so by then I'm sure that I'll have some more free time on my schedule and things around here can be a little more lively and dessert-filled.  Until then, just bear with me.  Recipes and photos will come up sporadically, but if they're a little far apart or my writing is reading a little wonky, just rest assured that this is only a temporary phase.  For now though, let's focus instead on these PB+J blondies.  When life gets too busy to handle, you need easy desserts to keep you sane, and these blondies are the simplest of desserts!

Dulce de Leche Brownies

GUYS THE SUPER BOWL IS THIS SUNDAY!!!!  Don't mistake the all-caps and exclamation points for some kind of extreme interest in this Sunday's upcoming event.  No, that would be very uncharacteristic of me.  You should know by now that I am the least interested person ever in regard to the Super Bowl and other football related events.  While I've never taken the time to understand the rules of the game, I also haven't been really interested in doing so.  I'm that guy that will sit in front of the television during a game (on the rare occasion that that actually happens) and just stare blankly at the screen in utter confusion.  I'll admit that I do like watching the replays though, but only because I like how all those lines get drawn on the screen over the playing field.  The only football games I've ever attended were those that I was forced to attend by my middle and high school band programs to play during halftime, and you can bet that the second we finished performing, I was outta there.  I had no desire to sit outside in the cold on a metal bleacher holding an instrument with metal keys for an additional hour and a half.  Fortunately for me, Columbia is really lacking in the football department (a quality all Columbians have come to accept and even embrace), so I didn't really feel like I was missing out on that defining feature of so many other college campuses.  I find that the half-time shows are often over-hyped and the few shows I've watched have been ok, but nothing mind-blowingly spectacular.  The fact that I only just found out LAST WEEK that the Super Bowl is being held at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey just goes to show how out of touch with the rest of America I really am.  

So why the all caps, you ask?  Why do I seem so excited about something which I am clearly, so obviously, NOT interested in?  Because I have something that I know all you Super Bowl/football fans will want as soon as you read this.  

Dulce de Leche Brownies.

Chocolate Coconut Almond Revel Bars & a Hershey's Spreadable Chocolate GIVEAWAY!

Oh jeez, we're barely into 2014, we just finished baking up a storm of holiday cookies only a few weeks ago, and here I am bringing you MORE cookies?  I know, I can barely believe it myself.  As soon as Christmas ended I promised myself that I would take a long detox from cookie baking for a while, as I was seriously all cookied-out. I don't really know how many dozens of cookies I made, but just trust me when I say that it was a lot.  Because of that, I'm just as surprised as you are that I'm already posting a brand new bar cookie recipe.  At least this new cookie addition to the blog is a really, really, really good one.  Here's a quick summary of the ingredients: coconut + oats + HERSHEY'S CHOCOLATE ALMOND SPREAD.

Yeah baby.

Now that we're in part three of my Hershey's Chocolate Spreads exploration, you may have picked up on the fact that out of the three flavors, the Chocolate-Almond spread is my favorite.  I won't go into all the reasons why in this post (just go here and here if you need your memory refreshed!), because there are other more important things to discuss, like these Chocolate Coconut Almond Revel Bars.  I loved snacking on all the spreads and using them as dips, but when the time came to actually incorporate the spreads in a real recipe, I was a bit lost. Lost in a good way, I mean.  I just had too many ideas and narrowing them down to one really great idea seemed impossible.  I was torn between swirling the spreads into waffles and ice cream, or creating an intense chocolate Bundt cake with a molten chocolate center, among others.  All that changed once I stumbled upon a confection known as a "revel bar."  I'd never heard of a revel bar until a few days ago, but I instantly knew they would be a bar cookie that I would love.  A revel bar is basically oatmeal cookie dough sandwiching a middle layer of chocolatey fudge.  Sounds too good to be true, right?  As soon as I discovered revel bars, the foodie gears in my brain started turning and I just knew this was what I had to make. 

Peppermint Brownie & Sugar Cookie Squares

We've made it to Day 5 of Cookie Week, and the 5 day before Christmas stretch!  I'm going to keep this post very brief, mostly because I have presents to wrap, cookie dough to make and refrigerate, and an entire house to help get in perfectly clean, tip top shape...by tonight!  I have family flying in this evening (they'll arrive very early tomorrow morning, like 7 or so), so tomorrow there will be zero time to get anything done before they arrive. We're in the final moments of rushing to get everything cleaned up and organized, and all the flour that I've gotten in every nook and cranny of my kitchen swept away.  That task alone is of epic proportions in itself!

Another very epic topic that is definitely less stress inducing would be these Peppermint Brownie and Sugar Cookie Squares.  I saw this bar cookie in this month's edition of Family Circle, and I immediately knew that I HAD to make it for myself.  Sugar cookie and brownie all in one bite?  What more could you ask for? 

Peppermint, I guess.  That's certainly a doable request.

Fig and Raisin Granola Bars

I'm sure I'm not the only one around here who had their fair share of favorite school lunch snacks.  I know that my personal favorite, ultimate, best-school-lunch-ever snack was a bag of Entenmann's Little Bites blueberry muffins.  Their brownies, chocolate chip, and banana muffins ranked pretty high on the best snack ever list, but the blueberry muffins simply couldn't be beat.  I have no idea why they were my favorite, but I do remember feeling a slightly irrational sense of happiness whenever I opened my lunchbox and saw that my mom had packed me some blueberry muffins.  Other favorite lunch box snacks included Rice Krispy treats, strawberries, the occasional chocolate chip cookie, and granola bars.  Chewy bars, to be exact.  You know, the ones that are loaded with sugar, chocolate chips, and other unnecessary sweeteners?  To be fair, the lunches my mom packed weren't all that bad.  They typically consisted of a turkey and cheese sandwich on whole wheat bread (I was the sad kid in elementary school without a Wonder Bread sandwich, but in retrospect, I'm eternally grateful for that), a small juice box, a fruit, and one of the previously mentioned sugary snacks.  After elementary school, I guess I outgrew Rice Krispy treats and Chewy Bars, and chocolate chip cookies, muffins, and brownies became treats to enjoy only on very sporadic or special occasions.  After a very long time without having a Chewy bar, I happened to come across one during my senior year in college, and I decided to eat it, for old time's sake.  

Let me tell you.  That was a huge mistake. Ok, maybe not huge, but it was nevertheless, a mistake.   

I legitimately wasn't able to finish the Chewy Bar.  I got maybe about halfway through it before I had to get rid of it.  I was in shock at how overwhelmingly sweet it was, and I felt my throat and chest hurting with every bit that I managed to swallow.  I couldn't believe I actually used to like them when I was younger.  My taste buds have obviously matured from when I was 8 years old, and I find most of my favorite childhood snacks to be staggeringly sweet.  I really just happen to find most things to be too sweet in general.  I'm constantly watering down juices, adding less sugar to almost every recipe I try out, and using very skimpy amounts of frosting when I frost a cupcake for myself.  But, I digress.  The point is, that Chewy Bar left such a bad taste in my mouth (literally), that I got an urge to make myself a granola bar that I would actually want to eat.  I really love granola, and since it's so simple to make, I knew I had to come up with a batch of perfect granola bars. It took me longer than I thought to get around to making them, but I figured they would be the perfect snack to bring along for the long car ride up to New Hampshire when we helped my sister move into school. These granola bars feature a healthy helping of dried figs and raisins, and are sweetened with honey and applesauce.  Chopped walnuts provide a little bit of crunch here and there, and they are such an improvement over the granola bars I used to eat when I was younger.  These are thick, chewy, a little crunchy, and loaded with dried fruit in every bite.  Homemade granola bars are really infinitely better than any granola bar from a package.   

White Chocolate Chip & Brown Butter Blondies

There's something incredibly comforting about a brownie.  For me, they're one of the ultimate "feel-good" treats that I love to indulge on every now and then.  Put me in front of a warm-from-the-oven, soft, fudgey, and intensely chocolatey brownie that's been topped off with a scoop of real vanilla ice cream, and I don't think it gets any better than that (unless the brownie in question has walnuts mixed in, then it really just can't get any better).  The combination of the warm chocolate brownie with the cold ice cream is classic and perfect, and I love how the ice cream melts into a pool of delicious vanilla cream, completely surrounding the brownie.  Ahh, yes.  Brownies à la mode, you are the best. 

Blondies on the other hand?  Eh... 

Yes, I know, this is a post for blondies, not brownies, and there were no scoops of vanilla ice cream within reach as I was taking these photographs.  There's no real fudgey chocolate flavor, and these blondies were not warm-from-the-oven, but rather were at room temperature, nor were they chock full of walnuts.  They were, however, surprisingly delicious.

The blondie is a bar cookie that has always mystified me.  I never really understood their why they were so popular, or why they even existed, to be perfectly honest.  I mean, brownies are just so good, why would anyone want a chocolate-less version of a brownie?  The notion of the blondie just did not resonate in my chocoaholic brain.  I think I can probably count on one hand the number of times I've actually eaten a blondie, and I'm almost certain that each time it was because the blondie was the only dessert option available at the time.  Blondies simply seemed like brownie wannabe's.

And then this recipe came along. 

Lemon Squares

My sister is the type of person who will get obsessed with the most random things.  One of her recent obsessions is reading online reviews- for everything.  Not just food recipes, or movies, or things like that, but for every gadget and gizmo you could think of, for restaurants, make up, literally, everything.  While I normally laugh off her silly obsessions and other weird habits, this is one that I don't really mind too much.  Sure, I still think it's a bit ridiculous, but she has become my go-to person whenever I find myself in some sort of shopping dilemma or state of boredom.  I just have to ask her for an opinion, and she can instantly go on and on about whatever it is that I'm asking her, based on reviews that she has read.  Her advice, or I guess, her knowledge of other people's opinions, has come in very handy in recent days.  

For instance, my sister was the one who knew exactly which case I should get to protect my iPad mini (I got a DODOcase, and I can't wait for it to come in the mail!).  She is also the person who suggested that I buy Benefit's High Beam highlighter, a purchase which I have really grown to just love, and am using much more frequently than I thought I ever would.  She is also the one who I usually go to first when I am stumped about what to bake for the blog, or, when I need the perfect recipe suggestion.  She loves reading recipe reviews and combining components from 6 different recipes in order to make the ultimate "fill in the blank." Remember the recipe I posted a few months back for super fluffy buttermilk pancakes?  That was her own invention, based off of I don't even know how many different buttermilk pancake recipes.  My sister's buttermilk pancake recipe is my favorite buttermilk pancake recipe, and I've made it tons of times, with great success each time.  

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cheesecake Bars

My mind is in a whirlwind.  I've spent too much time in the past couple of days reading about Japanese architecture, some things about darkness and space (I don't exactly remember what those were about...), attempting to fabricate a physical model depicting "structured cacophony" (we've been assigned to create a model in response to some really, really, really crazy music samples), attempting to learn the dictionary in preparation for the GRE's, finish laying out a publication that should have been completed last semester, and researching affordable housing policy and design in the US for my independent study.  Sounds like a lot right? Good thing I've been putting Gossip Girl on the very top of my priority list!  Yes, I know, the show is over, and I'm only several years behind, since I'm only halfway through season 3, but that's ok.  It's my sister's fault, really.

My sister got me into watching the show over Thanksgiving break, and it's become a guilty pleasure of sorts. Instead of pretending to be interested in upcoming football celebrations, I'm allowing myself to be entertained by other things.  Am I watching the Super Bowl on Sunday?  Psh no way.  I have a model to build that's due on Monday.  Will I have the commercials on in the background?  Probably not.  Will my laptop have Netflix playing what remains of season 3 of GG?  Most likely.  I seriously need to get my priorities in check.  I have homework to do! I have things to research!  I have things to bake and photograph and write about!  Ah!!!  Sigh.  One step at a time.  Let's start with these.  Chocolate chip cookie dough cheesecake bars.  Yes, I think that would be a wonderful place to start. 

Peanut Butter and Jelly Bars

Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are super delicious.

I didn’t grow up eating them, and I didn’t even grow to like peanut butter until only a couple of years ago.  I also don’t like using “classic” white bread, but instead prefer a multigrain or whole wheat bread when making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich…I just don’t really like white bread, whole wheat is so much yummier.  Yes I’m weird, I know.  It’s ok though.

To this day, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches aren't something I eat very often, but every now and then I find myself craving a pb&j sandwich, because they’re filling, sweet, and so simple to make.  These bars are just as easy to prepare.