Recipe: Glazed Orange Brownies

Posted on April 29, 2015 by Ann Roth

It’s recipe time! This one is easy and delicious.

Glazed Orange Brownies
A Paula Deen recipe, with modifications (in parentheses) that cut down on the sugar and fat

Ingredients
Brownies:

2 cups sugar (I use 1)
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup butter, softened (I use 1 stick instead)
4 large eggs (I use 2 instead)
2 teaspoons orange extract
2 teaspoons orange zest, divided (1 for the batter and 1 for the glaze)

Glaze:

1 cup confectioner’s sugar
2 tablespoons orange juice, fresh

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350°. Spray a 13×9-inch pan with nonstick cooking spray. (This pan is too big! I use a smaller one.)

2. In a large bowl, stir together sugar, flour, and salt. Add butter, eggs, extract, and 1 teaspoon zest, and beat with a mixer at medium speed until well blended. Pour batter into prepared pan.

3. Bake for 30 minutes or until light golden brown and set. Remove from oven, and pierce cake all over with a fork.

4. In a small bowl, combine confectioners sugar, orange juice, and remaining teaspoon zest until smooth. Pour over warm cake. Let cool completely before cutting into squares.

Enjoy!

Until next time,
Ann
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Tunnel of Fudge Cake

Posted on November 17, 2014 by Ann Roth

Years ago, I cut this recipe out of our now-defunct, and dearly missed daily morning pager, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (http://www.seattlepi.com/). The paper has since moved online, but I really liked reading the hard copy over breakfast and coffee. Anyway… I finally got around to trying this recipe. Wow. Scrumptious, and rich, with a lovely, fudgy center. The directions are a bit wonky in places (I mean, if the mixing bowl doesn’t feel cool, stop mixing and place in the freezer for 5 minutes? Give me a break!) , so I made a few changes.

Note: the amount of sugar in this thing is staggering. I worried that it would taste too sweet. But it came out just right. I will definitely make this one again.

Tunnel of Fudge Cake

Adapted from a recipe by Shirley O. Corriher

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Generously grease a Bundt pan.

1 cup softened butter (original recipe called for more, but 1 cup is enough!)

3/4 cup brown sugar, packed

1 cup white sugar

1 tsp vanilla

1/3 c vegetable oil

2 egg yolks

4 whole eggs

2 cups confectioners sugar (I used scant cups)

2 1/4 cup all purpose, unbleached flour (I avoid the bleached stuff–who wants to ingest anything that has been bleached?)

1/2 tsp salt

3/4 cup cocoa powder

In a bowl, mix together flour, and salt; set aside.

In mixer, cream butter and sugar and beat until airy. Add eggs and yolks and mix for about 20 seconds. Add vanilla and oil. Mix for about 30 seconds; add flour mixture. Mix until incorporated; add confectioners sugar and cocoa powder. When incorporated, pour into prepared Bundt pan. Bake about 38-45 minutes. Note: Because of the gooey center, there is no way to insert a toothpick to see if done. I have a convection oven, and baked for 38 minutes.

Place on a wire rack and let cool in the pan for 30 minutes. Then gently press on the top with the palm of your hand to eliminate the air pocket that formed while baking. Cool in the pan for 2-3 hours; then invert pan onto a serving platter to finish cooling. Or serve warm.

Until next time, and droolingly yours,

Ann

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Not Quite Back from the Dead

Posted on November 3, 2014 by Ann Roth

Over the weekend, I attended my first ever Day of the Dead party. What an interesting event! People decorated their faces and dressed in costumes commemorating the dead. Sounds macabre, doesn’t it? But it wasn’t. This holiday is all about remembering the dead with laughter and celebration. What better way to remember those who have passed away?

Arnie and Becca Moreno, the party hosts in their Day of the Dead makeup and costumes.

One of several shrines, commemorating loved ones who have departed this earth. Party attendees were invited to place photos of dead loved ones and/or beloved pets here.

This Day of the Dead skeleton cake was one of many on the tables and tables of food and drink. Did I mention that this was a party of laughter and celebration?

Just your friendly, everyday mummy, relaxing on the bed where we laid our coats!

This fanciful Day of the Dead plate certainly caught my eye.

What Day of the Dead party would be complete without a backyard “cemetery”?

It’s always good to try something new and different, and I thoroughly enjoyed this experience. Who knows- it must might end up in a future book. 🙂

Until next time, and wishing you new and interesting experiences,

Ann

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Eat Your Cake and Have It, Too

Posted on September 12, 2014 by Ann Roth

Brown Sugar Caramel Pound Cake

This cake is soooo tasty that I had to share. Maybe you’ll make it this weekend.

Brown Sugar Caramel Pound Cake

Ingredients:
1 ½ cups butter softened (I used 1 cup instead)
2 cups light brown sugar, packed (a bit too sweet, and I recommend cutting to 1 ½ cups)
1 cup granulated sugar (you may want to cut this, too, to ¾ cup)
5 large eggs
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt (if you use unsalted butter, add ¼ tsp salt per cube of unsweetened butter)
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup whole milk
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1 8oz bag toffee chips
1 cup pecans, chopped

Directions:
Preheat oven to 325
Grease and flour a 12 cup Bundt pan.

Beat butter until creamy. Add sugars, beating until fluffy. Add eggs one at a time. Add vanilla.

In medium bowl combine flour, baking powder and salt. Add flour mix to batter alternately with milk and vanilla, beat until just combined. Stir in toffee buts and pecans. Spoon batter into pan.

Bake 85 minutes or until wooden pick comes out clean. (Mine was done in about 77 minutes.) To prevent excess browning, cover cake with foil while baking. (For the first 50 minutes or so, I covered with foil, with slits in it to let out steam. Then I took off the foil.)

Let cake cool in pan for 10 minutes. Remove from pan, and let cool for 15-30 minutes on a wire rack. While it cools, make caramel sauce. (Or buy your favorite caramel topping and use that.) I used a recipe from Barefoot Contessa, below.

With a chopstick of some other stick, poke holes in the cake. Spoon Caramel Sauce over hot cake, letting it seep into the holes.

Barefoot Contessa Caramel Sauce: (for this cake, I halved the recipe)
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/3 cup water
1 1/4 cups heavy cream (I substituted whole milk, which makes this a runnier sauce–perfect for this cake)
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Mix the water and sugar in a medium heavy-bottomed saucepan. Cook over low heat for 5 to 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 5-9 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. The Barefoot Contessa suggests letting this sauce cool to room temperature, at least 4 hours, but I let it cool for about 10 minutes and used it!

Until Monday, and wishing you Happy Cake Eating,

Ann
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