Goji Berry Brownie-cakes!

So a while ago I played around with making some goji berry brownies and made a high-fat batch and a low-fat batch.  Neither turned out very well so tonight, due to a major PMS inspired chocolate craving, I decided to give it another go.  This is mainly because, while not quite successful, the goji berries in the fatty-batch (aka: buttery brownie crumble) tasted amazing! Again, I have to preface this by saying that my cupboards are lacking and I put off doing my grocery shopping today *shameface* so I made these with egg beaters and crisco instead of butter. Ew.  You definitely need the added taste that only butter or margarine can bring to the table.

Prepping the goji berries:

You can easily find goji berries in your local whole foods.  They’re a pinkish color and come dehydrated.  Their taste is subtle, sweet, but also salty.  I don’t really like chewy things in my brownies so I rehydrate them.  However, you can also just add them into the batter as is for a little chew-factor!  They would complement walnuts really well… if you like walnuts in brownies… which I really don’t or if you like the combination of orange and chocolate you could rehydrate the berries in orange juice and then add some orange zest to the batter!

Dried Goji Berries

In a small bowl add a handfull of berries, agave nectar, honey, a touch of vanilla, and soy milk.  Stir and let sit for a little while.  I did this while I was defrosting my egg beaters.  Pop them in the microwave for 30 seconds, stir and let sit until room temperature again. .. then pop them back in for another 30 and stir and let sit.  They should be nice, plump, and tender now.  Put this aside as you work on the rest of your batter.  They are the last thing to be added!

See them getting plumper?!

Brownie Batter:

• 1 cup butter/margarine/crisco
• 3 cups sugar
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 4 eggs
• 1 cup flour
• 2/3 cup cocoa
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• goji berries (prepped)

You know the drill!  Cream together the butter/margarine/crisco (ew) and sugar.  Add wet ingredients then dry.  At the tail end scoop the goji berries into the mixture.  While you certainly don’t want to get all of the milk mixture in there, make sure to spill at least a little bit in   I decided to make my brownies in my muffin tin so that I could freeze the extra ones.  Bake at 350 degrees for about half an hour or until they’ve risen and you can stick a toothpick in and it comes out clean.

Brownie-cakes in the oven!

... aaand out of the oven!

My only complaint is that they aren’t really as fudgy as I wanted

-Kate

Peach-Amaretto Crisp

Peach crisp is a fairly low maintenance desert. In fact, I chose to make it because of how difficult it is to mess up! My only real fault was that I didn’t wait for the peaches to fully ripen, but that’s more bad luck than anything else. I also followed a Maida Heatter recipe that included much more butter in the crisp than I really wanted. In fact, I wasn’t aware that a crisp should include butter at all! It felt more like making a pie dough, which was exactly what I was trying to avoid. For once, Maida has lead me astray!

Peach-Amaretto Filling (flavor to taste):

• Peaches (2)
• Brown sugar
• Cinnamon *
• Cloves
• Nutmeg
• Pinch of salt
• Amaretto
• Vanilla
• A squeeze of lemon juice if you have it

* I am somewhat of a cinnamon snob. I use a combination of Chinese Cassia and Extra Fancy Vietnamese cinnamon from Penzeys Spices. If you CLICK HERE they give a helpful description of each varieties flavor characteristics.

Maida Heatter’s Crisp:

• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup dark brown sugar
• 1 stick unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup “old fashioned” Quaker oats
• + added a handfull of chopped walnuts instead of pecans

As far as the filling goes, mix all of the ingredients sparingly. Just enough sugar to help caramelization as the peaches themselves should be sweet enough … unless your peaches are as under-ripe as mine were   If you like you can also add other natural sweeteners like honey or agave nectar. You want to give this mixture time to sit as it will begin to generate its own juice/syrup. So now is the perfect time to start on your crisp!

Peaches Macerating

I never was good at following directions, which is just asking for trouble when it comes to baking, but i prefer to go by feel. So I just added all the ingredients to a big bowl and diced the stick of butter as Maida’s technique sounded exactly like what one does to a pie dough… right down to advocating the use of a pastry cutter. Do you have a pastry cutter? Neither do I! Luckily I grew up using the old-school method of two knives and am quite handy at it.

Out-of-place pastry cutting... where are you taking me Maida?

That said, this never acheived the consistency Maida said it should… like a pie dough does. (Yes, I checked to see if any pages had stuck together and I somehow was reading two separate recipes a la Goofy)  However, this method is laborious and unnecessary. What would be more effective is to use half a stick of butter and melt it in the microwave and add it to the dry ingredients. Adding the peach mixture to your baking dish of choice (in my case a small casserole dish) and cover with the crisp mixture. Bake at 375 for about 30 minutes or until golden brown and the peachy juicy goodness is bubbling up around the edges.

In the oven

Golden brown, juicy, and delicious!

Tucking in!

The great part about only having two peaches to work with is that I had lots of leftover crisp that makes super delicious granola! So I spread the excess out on a baking sheet lined with tin foil and let it brown as well. It was done well before the Peach-Amaretto Crisp so I took it out and let it rest until still warm, but handle-able and then broke it into peices.

- Kate

Granola Bonus XD

Strawberry Marshmellows

Because I just can’t leave a good recipe well enough alone, I adapted the famed recipe for strawberry marshmallows found on eGullet created by Nightscotman as relayed here by Brownie Points since the link to the original recipe no longer worked.

Strawberry Marshmallow Recipe:

• 1/2 cup strawberry puree [Step 1]
• 1/2 cup water and a dash of orange extract
• 4 envelopes gelatin
• 3/4 cup liquid mixture [Step 2]
• 1 1/3 cup corn syrup [Step 3]
• 3 cups sugar
• 1/3 tsp salt

Prep: Line a 1 inched rimmed baking sheet with aluminum foil and spray liberally with your PAM of choice!

Step 1: I didn’t have fresh strawberries so I made it from frozen by microwaving until thawed and then used the hand mixer to ‘puree’ them. Because they were frozen I allowed for the excess water since that’s where a lot of the flavor runs off to. Also, frozen strawberries tend to be more tart than fresh so it would be a good idea to add a little sugar, but in this case since there was so much sugar already involved in the recipe I restrained myself!

Add 1/2 cup of water and a dash of orange extract to the puree and “sprinkle the gelatin over this mixture to soften (aka bloom)”

… Alright, so I’m going to admit that I had no idea what that last line was supposed to mean or what to expect “blooming” or “softening” to look like. Also, it quickly became apparent that simply “sprinkling” the gelatin wasn’t going to be enough. It needed to be stirred in a bit until it was all wet at which point it sort of soaked up all of the liquid in the bowl.