Blackberry Brownies (+New Website!!)

August 6, 2014 by Mackenzie

What do you think?! How does the new website look?

I am SO excited about the new site. It has been a work in progress over the last month as I decided that I really wanted to grow my blog, my followers, and transform Never Skip Dessert into it’s very own self-hosted website! In the last few weeks I bought the domain (www.neverskipdessertblog.com) and migrated my old site over to this new self-hosted site on Bluehost. I want to thank Katie Clark over at www.clarkscondensed.com for helping me with the migration – she was very helpful and I didn’t have to worry about a thing!

So now that the big process of migrating and setting up the new site is done – I’m ready to begin posting recipes again! If you want to stay up-to-date on what I’m cooking and where I am in the world (lots of changes in the near future!) I’d love for you to subscribe to my site so that you’ll receive an email with each new post. You can also follow Never Skip Dessert on facebook, instagram or twitter! All the links are on the right hand side of the page.

But back to the kitchen… luckily, I have been able to cook a lot lately! It’s fun to have a whole office ready to eat whatever treat I bring in – and last week, it was these blackberry brownies!

It is HOT and HUMID in DC. Ugh. It’s quite miserable during the day but thanks to the underground tunnels connecting all of the Senate office buildings and the Capitol, I am rarely outside in the middle of the day. But one hot, sticky walk back from work I was craving chocolate and thought about how I could incorporate something summary and refreshing into a classic chocolate treat. For whatever reason, I immediately thought of adding blackberries to brownies and thought – wow, now this is an idea I have to try!

I used a recipe I already had on my blog for Salted Caramel Brownies and omitted the salted caramel and instead added fresh blackberries to the batter just before baking – crushing a few to get blackberry juice swirled into the batter. They turned out fantastic – a sweet surprise in every few bites!

My coworkers loved them and actually asked me to bring them again – so I did! I brought them in two days in a row and they were quite the crowd-pleaser!

Try them out and let me know what you think! Also, I would love a comment if you have one on the look of the new site! (Or any glitches if you can find one!)

Blackberry Brownies

Recipe Type: Dessert

Author: Mackenzie (Recipe adapted from Smitten Kitchen)

Serves: 18

Ingredients

3 oz. unsweetened chocolate, roughly chopped
1 stick unsalted butter
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Heaped 1/4 teaspoon flaky sea salt
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
1 6oz (small) package of fresh blackberries, washed

Instructions

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 9×13 pan with cooking spray.
Melt chocolate and butter together in a heatproof bowl over gently simmering water (double boiler) or melt in the microwave in 30 second bursts, stirring in between. Stir until smooth. Beat in the sugar, then the eggs one at a time, then the vanilla and salt. Add flour and mix until combined. Finally, stir in the blackberries (don’t be afraid to crush a few and infuse the batter with blackberry juice)
Pour batter into prepared pan and spread evenly. Bake for 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean. Let cool and then cut into squares and serve!

Notes

PS – if you’re short on time/ingredients, you can also use a store-bought brownie mix and just add blackberries to the batter! But shhh – don’t tell anyone 😀

Peanut Butter Cheerio Treats

July 23, 2014 by Mackenzie

Rice Krispy Treats… always a childhood favorite! For whatever reason, I wasn’t a fan of rice krispy treats when I was growing up. It was always the post-game snack after soccer games or the summer camp go-to. But I just refused to like them. I honestly think it was because my mom loved them. Don’t you remember as a kid when your parent loved something and you just decided that you don’t like it, really just to spite them? Yeah, I’m pretty sure that was why I never liked rice krispy treats – because my mom LOVED them. Well, when I got to college and discovered our campus bakery’s rice krispy treats, all of my rice krispy treat resolutions went flying out the window. The cafes sell individually packaged, just-made rice krispy bars and they are so good. Gooey, sticky, marshmallow-y… So much better than the store-bought kind! They quickly became my go-to library study treat and at the end of the school year, when I had to finish out my meal points, I bought ten of them to bring home for my mom and I! Oh, how things change 🙂 Well, I found this recipe on Pinterest awhile back and have been dying to try it. I’m not sure what took me so long – it is the simplest recipe! It took me a whopping ten minutes to make. And seeing as I did NOT need to eat them all, and I would have if they stayed in my kitchen, I brought them in to work to share with my coworkers. They were a hit! I watched several of the staffers casually wander by for seconds and even thirds! Ha 😀 It’s a fun twist to a classic treat!

Peanut Butter Cheerio Treats

Recipe Type: Dessert

Author: Mackenzie

Serves: 28

Recipe slightly adapted from JustJennRecipes

Ingredients

2 tablespoons butter
3/4 cup peanut butter
1 (10 oz) bag marshmallows
6 cups cheerios (peanut butter cheerios, multigrain cheerios, honey nut…whatever your favorite is!)
1 cup chocolate chips

Instructions

Butter a 9×13 glass baking dish. In a large saucepan over medium heat, melt the butter and peanut butter. Add the marshmallows and melt them down. Just as the marshmallows dissolve into the peanut butter, pour in the cheerios and stir it all together, making sure all the cheerios are coated in the peanut butter mixture.
Transfer the cheerios to the prepared baking dish and spread evenly. Sprinkle the chocolate chips over the top. Let sit for 10 minutes to set and cool and then serve!

Christmas Cookies #6: Mocha Cookies

December 23, 2012 by Mackenzie

Chocolate and espresso beans together in a cookie… yes please! This was the sixth cookie recipe we tried during our Christmas cookie craziness and it was a new recipe for both of us – and we loved it!

Mocha Cookies

Recipe from Fine Cooking

Ingredients:

3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup plus 2 tsp. unsweetened natural cocoa powder
1/2 cup plus 1 tbsp sugar
1/8 tsp salt
1/8 tsp baking soda
7 tbsp unsalted butter, slightly softened
1.5 tbsp whole milk
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
3 oz. bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, chopped coarsely
1/4 tsp finely ground coffee beans, plus 28 whole beans
1/4 cup turbinado sugar

Directions:

In a food processor, combine the flour, cocoa, sugar, salt, and baking soda. Pulse several times to mix thoroughly. Cut the butter into about 12 chunks and add them to the bowl. Pulse several times. Combine the milk and vanilla in a small cup. With the processor running, add the milk mixture and continue to process until the dough clumps around the blade or the sides of the bowl. Add the coffee and chocolate and mix thoroughly.Transfer the dough to a large bowl or cutting board and knead with your hands a few times to make sure the dough is evenly blended.

Shape dough into a log about 14 inches long and 1 1/4 inches in diameter. Wrap in waxed paper and refridgerate until firm, one hour or overnight.

Preheat oven to 350F. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Put the turbinado sugar in a small bowl. Slice dough into 1/2 inch slices. Coat both sides with sugar and arrange 1 1/2 inches apart on the lined sheets. Press a coffee bean into the center of each cookie. Bake until the cookies puff and show very faint cracks on the surface, 9 to 10 minutes. Let cookies cool on a rack.

Mackenzie

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