Salted Dulce de Leche Brownies

Sometimes I have a hard time controlling myself around baked goods. I know I don’t need that second cookie (or third, or sometimes fourth), but my god do I want it. It sings its sugary siren song, and I find myself devouring a handful of cookies for breakfast. There are days when I fuel myself with little more than sugar and caffeine, risking diabetic shock for just one more bite.

These brownies fall right within that line. I lose all semblance of self-control around these brownies. I’ve made them twice. And eaten the entire pan—by myself. Twice. I’ve finished one piece and headed immediately back for another. It’s no exaggeration when I say I can’t get enough of them.

I’d wake up in the morning and grab one for breakfast. I’d get home from work and immediately grab one for a snack. They were the first thing I stuffed in my face after a soggy, waterlogged camping trip. I mourned them after polishing off the last piece. They’re that good.

They’re intensely fudgy and thick, studded with pockets of dulce de leche within and swirls across the top. A sprinkle of sea salt ups the flavor game, making these babies completely irresistible.

And the best news--they’re not that much more involved than a box mix. No chopping and melting chocolate. Because they’re made with nothing but cocoa powder, the only thing we’re melting here is butter. Easy peasy. Which makes these brownies 1000 times more dangerous. Minimal effort with most of the ingredients already in my cupboard? It’s going to be tough to break my brownie addiction.

Blackberry Crumble Bars

The sunshine outside right now is deceiving. It looks absolutely gorgeous, but there’s still a bit of a chill in the air. I shouldn’t complain because it’s beautiful for early April. But after a few weeks of way above average temperatures that felt more like May than March, I want the almost 80s back! I want to grill out for dinner. I want to sit outside on my brand new patio furniture. I want to ride my new bike. I want to frolic in the sunshine in a tank top and a skirt! But I guess I’ll have to settle for staring at the emerging green outside my back door from the couch and eating some summer berries to trick myself into thinking it’s almost warm.

Is there anything better than juicy, ripe berries? I’m a terrible eater when it comes to fresh produce (I hate nearly every vegetable on earth), but I can pack away fruit like it’s my job. It’s the main reason I love summer. Because I certainly can’t stand the heat.

The grocery store has been having sales on summer fruit for the past couple weeks now. While I held off on the cheap, but not-so-great looking strawberries, I couldn’t resist the perfect blackberries. They just called to me, and at $1 a carton, I couldn’t stop myself.

I also couldn’t stop myself from eating these bars. I didn’t even share! Warm from the oven or room temperature with a bit of whipped cream, they were hard to say no to. Sweet and tart with just a tiny hint of cinnamon spice, these helped convince me that I’m officially over my aversion to baked fruit. I’m ready to try these bars again when the big hauls of summer fruit come rolling in. I think they’d be amazing with a mix of raspberries, blueberries, and blackberries.

Oh Summer, please hurry!

Peanut Butter Cup Blondies

All I wanted to do was go camping one more time before the summer was over. That’s it. Was that too much to ask?

With an ever changing schedule at work, it’s next to impossible to have 2 days off in a row. Much less on a weekend. So finding time to squeeze in one more camping trip with Boyfriend was tough. But a couple weekends ago, I scored probably my only chance to get away for quite awhile. I begged Boyfriend to go camping at one of the state parks not too far outside town, even if it was just for 1 night. He agreed, as long as the weather would be decent. So naturally, it rained practically the entire week. But Friday was dry, and the weekend looked alright, with nothing major in the forecast. I crossed my fingers and stared out the window all day Saturday, just begging the sun to stick around. By mid-afternoon things were still looking good, so Boyfriend and I loaded the car and headed north for one last camping adventure!

I’ve been lulled into a false sense of security with every other camping trip we've taken. No crazy drama. No huge issues. Nothing other than the occasional raccoon. I had come to believe that the family curse of bringing on inclement weather by merely thinking about an outdoor activity had been broken. (Seriously. My whole life, we’ve never been able to do anything outside--camping, grilling, yardwork—without a previously perfect day turning into the storm of the century within minutes.) But of course, the streak had to end sometime.

What had been a good day went south the second we turned onto the main road of the park. Literally. Not even exaggerating when I say the exact instant! Turn signal on, and splat. The first raindrop hits the windshield. It slowed while we found our site, but by the time we got our tent set out and were attempting to put it up, the one little black cloud we saw while driving unleashed every bit of its fury on us. Sprinkles turned into a torrential downpour and our nice shady little area turned into a soggy mud puddle in about a minute and a half. And most of the puddle ended up inside the tent. Everything was soaked, including us, and all I could do was sit in the car and cry that my one last camping trip was ruined.

The most frustrating part of it all? It only rained on us. As we were driving out of the park towards town to get dinner (since we didn’t bother bringing food for 1 night), the road just instantly dried up at one point. It was literally like a line had been drawn across the road. One side wet, the other completely dry. Like a force field or something! By the time we got to town, we realized it hadn’t even rained anywhere else. Just our part of the park. It’s the curse, I'm telling you.

After the rain, the trip never seemed to get much better. Everything was soaked, so a fire was out of the question. No fire, no light, nothing to do. So we decided to just call it a night. At which point, our neighbors in the site closest to ours decided to get into an all out screaming match with each other. Yelling, cursing, the works. Awesome. Even though they finally shut up, I still didn’t sleep well because the trees we set our tent under kept dripping on us all night. By morning, I was cold, damp, and grumpy.

Boyfriend tried to cheer me up by taking me to Denny’s for breakfast, which worked, except when the table behind us was a total JERK to our waitress, practically attacking her, demanding to know how many orders were in front of them and how long it would take to get their food because they were in a hurry. He threatened that if our waitress couldn’t get their food out to them in 10 minutes, they were leaving--they hadn’t even ordered yet! Good luck getting a slice of TOAST in 10 minutes mister, much less a whole meal. Oh and btw. Look around you. See all those tables that don’t have food yet? That’s how many orders are in front of you. Hit the drive thru at McDonalds if you’re in that big of a hurry. Don’t come to a sit down restaurant on a Sunday if you’re on a schedule.

Needless to say, our last camping trip of the summer wasn’t quite what I hoped for. On top of the actual disaster of the trip, I came home totally sick with either severe allergies or a cold, I’m still not sure which. But it kicked my butt and made me miserable and snotty for nearly a week. Which is where these blondies came in. All I wanted after the weekend was to wrap up in a blanket, lay on the couch, and eat comfort food. Lots of it.

I’m a sucker for Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. So throwing them into a peanut butter blondie? Sold. Plus, they’re fantastically simple. You don’t even need the mixer for these! From getting the ingredients out of the pantry to pulling the finished product out of the oven, these blondies take only about 40 minutes. And most of that is baking time. They come out moist, chewy, and perfectly peanut buttery-- total comfort food. And they're adapted from a Cooking Light recipe! So they might have been healthy at one point. (I'm sure throwing PB cups into it and eating an entire batch by yourself negates any healthy qualities of these, but it's nice to pretend.) They were just what I needed after a disaster of a week.

Key Lime Bars

I had this great idea to make Key Lime Meringue Tarts for my guest post over at Beantown Baker. They were going to be these adorable little pavlova-type meringues filled with key lime curd. Elegant, cute, and totally easy. Unfortunately, I was defeated by egg whites. Twice. I’ve never had a problem making meringue before. It’s always turned out perfectly. But this time, two different recipes, two different methods, exactly the same result—no matter how much I whipped, I couldn’t get stiff peaks. And then there was that little time management problem where I didn’t give myself long enough before work to bake the second batch, and ended up with marshmallows instead of meringue. But we won’t talk about that. Let’s talk about how I scrapped the whole thing and made Key Lime Bars instead.

Can I be honest? The only Key Lime Pie I’ve ever had is the one you can find in a box in the frozen foods section of the grocery store. Do those even use real key limes? Oh, and Key Lime Pie yogurt. But I’m sure that counts even less. I’ve never had a real Key Lime Pie. But the recipe for these bars looked so easy, I knew I had to give it a shot, whether it tasted like real Key Lime Pie or not.

Seriously. I’m talking E-A-S-Y. You don’t even need to use a mixer for this recipe. I even skipped the food processor part and just used store-bought graham cracker crumbs and mixed the melted butter in with my fingers. The part that took the longest was juicing the key limes. Those things are tiny so it took about 20 to get a half cup of juice. (But regular limes will work just as well, and only take a fraction of the time to juice!) I highly suggest buying a reamer if you don’t already have one. It makes it so much easier to juice those little babies than trying to jam them into a citrus press/squeezer or trying to squeeze them by hand. Roll the limes on the counter, pressing down firmly to help get the juices flowing, and then cut them in half. Set a mesh strainer over a liquid measuring cup to catch any seeds, and press the tip of the reamer into the center of the lime and twist, letting the juice flow through the strainer into the measuring cup. Once you’ve got the tiny halves juiced, slip the skins over your finger like a thimble and carefully run your zester over it (try not to zest down to the white part), before discarding!

While I have no idea what a real Key Lime Pie tastes like, if it’s anything like these bars, it may just be my new favorite pie. (Or really, my only favorite pie.) Unlike the lemon bars that made me do the sour shudder, the Key Lime Bars are a nice balance of sweet and tart, neither flavor overpowering the other. They’re thick and creamy, and the graham cracker crust has stayed mostly crisp even after a few days of hanging out in the fridge! (I’ve been selfish, and only shared one piece with Boyfriend, hoarding the rest for myself.) I’ll definitely make them again, although I’ll probably try it with regular limes next time, if only for the convenience of knowing I can always find them at the store. And not having to spend 20 minutes juicing 40 halves.

Brown Butter Toffee Blondies

Boyfriend, while holding the positions of both muse and taste-tester of my baking creations, rarely gets the honor of having anything baked specifically for him. Even though he’s usually the one to come up with the idea for flavor or presentation, the finished product gets whisked off to work for my coworkers to enjoy, leaving him to sample those left behind, usually the ugliest of the bunch, if he even gets any at all. Yeah. I know. I’m a terrible girlfriend.

Chocolate Chip Blondies

Note to self: taking a 2 week baking “vacation” maybe isn’t the best idea. 14 days out of the kitchen is a pretty long time. You tend to forget basic skills, such as reading directions clearly, and knowing what sized pans you own. My first trip back into the kitchen after my sabbatical resulted in not one but two, and almost three potentially disastrous mistakes…

It’s not that I didn’t want to bake these past 2 weeks. It’s not that I couldn’t bake. It’s just the mere fact that I’m absolutely, unequivocally lazy. I literally just sat around the house doing next to nothing. Well. Not entirely true. I’ve been glued to the Olympics like it’s my job. I don’t know what it is. I honestly haven’t even heard of half these people, and I would never find myself watching these sports in any other setting. Really. When would I ever think, “hey let’s go see a Biathlon”? But put it on the Olympics and I can’t take my eyes off it. There’s just something about watching the best people in the world excel in what they love that just gets me. That, and the inherent danger of the Winter Olympic sports. I don’t think there’s a single sport that doesn’t defy laws of gravity or hold the possibility of severe physical injury. I mean seriously—have you seen Skeleton? Who in their right mind would throw themselves down an ice tube, going 80mph headfirst and facedown, with nothing underneath them but a cafeteria tray on skis?? These people have to be crazy! And I just can’t get enough. So instead of spending time in the kitchen baking, I’ve been sitting on the couch for the past 2 weeks, holding my breath and mumbling “holy $#&%” the entire time.

Lemon Bars

Hello Sunshine!

Today is the first time in the last 16 days that it hasn’t snowed in some form. Whether it’s just flurries or a full-on snow storm, white stuff has been falling from the sky for the entire run of 2010 so far. And then some. But today we finally get a break! We finally get to see the sun again! With blue skies and not a cloud in sight, it’s shaping up to be a beautiful day. Still incredibly cold, but beautiful. And what better way is there to celebrate the reemergence of the sun on this glorious day than some bright sunny Lemon Bars?