Friday, December 11, 2009

Peppermint Brownies

Peppermint Brownies by freshfromthe.com

This year, when making my holiday cookies, I wanted to try something completely new. I searched around various baking blogs I frequent, and found one at Baking Bites. She calls hers Peppermint Cookies n' Cream Brownies, but since I used different Oreos, I'm just calling mine Peppermint Brownies. These aren't for those who want things done super quickly, so if you want to make them, be prepared to take some time.

Ingredients
1 cup butter
6 oz. unsweetened chocolate, chopped
3 cups sugar
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp vanilla extract
4 large eggs, room temperature
1 2/3 cups all purpose flour
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
3 cups roughly chopped peppermint oreo-type cookies (approx 18)


Preheat oven to 350F. Line a 9×13-inch baking pan with aluminum foil, and grease lightly.

In a medium-large saucepan over low heat, melt together butter and chocolate, stirring occasionally. Whisk in sugar, salt and vanilla, then turn off heat. Whisk in eggs one at a time, waiting until each is fully incorporated before adding the next. Stir in flour and cocoa powder until mixture is uniform. Stir in peppermint oreo cookies and pour batter into prepared pan. Crush 3-4 additional cookies finely and sprinkle on top of batter, if desired.

Bake for about 35 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out with moist crumbs, but not coated with batter.

Cool brownies in pan for about 20 minutes, then lift brownies in the foil out of the pan and place on a wire rack to cool completely before slicing.

Makes 36 brownies (or 48 bite-sized brownies).

So I took photos each time I added something to the chocolate mixture on the stove, but they all look basically the same, so I'm just going to post a couple of them.

After adding the eggs.

Stirring in the Oreos. I used the Mint Oreos you can find at the store. You can also find other types at Trader Joe's that work as well. Pretty sure those are seasonal. Not sure about the mint Oreos.

 
Peppermint Brownies
The block of brownies!

So, confession time. My oven was accidentally too hot so these didn't turn out quite as well as I would have liked. Basically the edges and bottoms were too hard. This is why I hate my stupid old oven. Give me a fancy one with an accurate thermometer that tells me when the oven is done heating up!! Seriously, the oven is an issue. The gauge thing is never correct, and I never know when it's done heating so the thermometer we have is basically a guesstimate as well. Blerg.

Peppermint Brownies

3 comments:

  1. Yum! I don't know if I can deal with chopping chocolate and whatnot, though, so for my holiday part tonight, I'm making your pumpkin pie cake ;)

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  2. These look soooo good! I might try to whip them up tomorrow for a party. Thanks for sharing!

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  3. These brownies sound fantastic. Peppermint anything works for me, especially around the holidays. I really love this time of year so much!

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