Page 79: Agave-Sweetened Brownie Gems

Today was another rainy day in paradise and I found myself with some extra time at home and an urge to bake.  My first inclination was to make the BabyCakes chocolate chip cookies, but as I continue my quest to bake every recipe in the BabyCakes book I thought I should try something new.  So I decided to try the second brownie recipe: Agave-Sweetened Brownie Gems.

Gems.  Sounds super cute and yummy right?  Wrong.  Bottom line: I think this is my least favorite BabyCakes recipe yet.  Pretty much everything I've made so far is not only better, but waaaaay better.  Let's disect...

From all accounts, these are apparently purposefully less sweet than the Brownie Bites I've successfully made before.  But the chocolate sauce is supposed to make up for this lack of sweetness.  It does not.  Maybe I did something wrong with the sauce, because as you'll see in the comparison below, mine looks very different from that shown in the picture.  Mine was not as dark and rich looking (or tasting), despite adding extra agave in attempt to get the "deep, rich chocolate" version of the sauce as described in the book.

The chocolate frosting "sauce" was pretty good - although I think the vanilla version is still better.  But even it could not bring these bites back to the level of yumminess I've come to expect from BabyCakes.  I'm taking them to work tomorrow where I plan to anonymously place them in the break room and remotely monitor how fast they disappear (this is what I do with baked goods not bad enough to throw out but not good enough to claim).

Oh well.  The upside: I'm one recipe closer to moving on to book two (and DONUTS!).  And... I have a bowl of leftover chocolate frosting in my refrigerator!  Surely I can think of a good way to put that to use.

Page 80: Blondies

I was looking for the perfect treat to take to a beachside BBQ for the fourth of July holiday last week. The pre-BabyCakes me would have simply taken cookies or some other standby, tried and true recipe. But, in keeping with my mission, I picked a yet-untested recipe from the BabyCakes book (in this case one that was simple and did not require frosting... a girl only has so much time to spend in the kitchen...) and went for it - and these were yummy!

I've never made blondies before. Maybe because I am generally of the belief that chocolate should be used in as many desserts as possible. Why would anyone want a vanilla brownie? But these little bites were delicious and had many fans at the BBQ. It might not have hurt that their only competition was a bag of Chewy Chips Ahoy. Oh well, I'll take the credit regardless!

So, the typical players here - garbanzo-fava bean flour, brown rice flour, potato starch (it had been awhile since I had to break that stuff out, actually), arrowroot, etc. When I mixed it all up and tasted the batter I said to myself: "self, this really tastes like chocolate chip cookie batter...". As directed, I made them in mini-muffin tins (which I am beginning to love because they only bake for nine minutes and thanks to my 24-cup tin I'm done in two batches!).

They were delish - right out of the oven they were gooey little nuggets of sweet goodness. Indeed, the finished product was also similar to that of a cakey chocolate chip cookie.

I'm sorry - I am still very lacking in the photo documentation department. And yes, I have regressed to the iPhone. 

The recipe says that blondies are best served warm and you should actually leave them in the tins to preserve freshness. This was a problem for me on two levels: 1) I needed to reuse the tins for batch two (sorry, Erin - most non-commercial kitchens don't have that much bakeware!) and 2) I was going to a BBQ on the beach. Portability was key here.

So, as I tend to do with most baked goods, once cooled I popped them in the freezer to make them stackable in a portable container. Then they went into the cooler and off we went.

When I took them out to serve them after the grilling was finished, the chilled version was very reminiscent of balls of cookie dough! In a good way, though. Definitely a winner.

I apologize for my lack of photos. I didn't even get one of the BBQ. Although I do have one I took of my view from the BBQ, so I will leave you with that:

Hope you had a wonderful holiday!

Page 77: Brownies

Or shall I say... brownie bites.  The book recommends that you make these little darlings in mini-muffin tins instead of in a casserole dish - so they come out in perfectly bite sized (or two bites for me!) gems. I was slightly preoccupied with making shish-kabobs and prepping for a Memorial Day BBQ so the pictures are minimal. My profuse apologies. You'll get the drift.

Mixing in the chocolate chips

The finished product - such cuties!

I loved these! They were so chocolately and rich! Brownie bites were actually the very first thing I tried from BabyCakes when I was in New York - and the homemade version did not disappoint.

And... I made another batch of chocolate chip cookie sandwiches - and this time I was able to practice enough self restraint that they were still around when our friends arrived for the BBQ. They came out slightly different this time, but everyone still loved them. The cookies were not as chewy - I still have some perfecting to do with those persnickety little things - and the frosting... simply DISASTROUS.

Seriously. Went straight to the food processor this time and the texture resembled that of curdled milk. I also partially blame my coconut oil. Anyway, thank goodness these babies are best frozen because the frosting never really acted like frosting.

These sandwiches have become something akin to a stubborn child. It seems the frosting needs some magical combination of blending followed by a turn in the food processor, but only after being blended and chilled. And no two sheets of cookies have turned out the same. Even I am not that high maintenance. I think maybe the solution lies in new Vita-Mix blender. I'll start working on talking to hubby into that one. I WILL master this!

Persnickety - but so worth it.