Toffee Blondies with Chocolate Ganache

I’m alive!  Between work craziness and an irksome cold, it was a bit touch-and-go there for a while, but I survived.

Instead of boring (or maybe scaring) you with a cold medicine-induced ramble, I’ll just get right to the recipe.  This is a quick and easy bar cookie that I whipped up a couple weeks ago.

Toffee Blondies with Chocolate Ganache (adapted from my recipes.com)

blondies

¼ c butter

1 c brown sugar

1 egg

2 t vanilla

1 c flour

½ t baking powder

1/8 t salt

½ t cinnamon

¼ c toffee baking bits (plus more for decoration)

chocolate ganache

¾ c heavy whipping cream

2 T butter

1 c finely chopped chocolate

Preheat oven to 350°F.  Grease 8-inch square baking pan.

Melt butter and combine with brown sugar, egg, and vanilla.  Add flour, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon and stir just until combined.

Spread batter into prepared pan and sprinkle top with ¼ c toffee bits.

 

Bake about 22 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.  Cool blondies in pan.

The blondies were so pretty, it was almost a shame to cover them with ganache - almost.

To make the ganache, heat the cream and butter in a medium saucepan just until it starts to boil. Remove from heat and add the chocolate.  Let the mixture sit for a minute and then stir gently until chocolate melts.

Pour the ganache over the cooled blondies.  If desired, sprinkle the ganache with toffee bits. 

After the ganache sets, cut the blondies into bars and enjoy!

Chocolate Ginger Halloween Cookies

Happy Halloween!

I made it just under the wire.

Okay, confession time. I’ve never really cared for Halloween.  Scary movies, dressing up, voluntarily going up to strangers (even if they would give me candy) – just not my thing.

Then my nephews and nieces came along.  How can you not get caught up in a child’s excitement? My sister’s kids LOVE costumes.  The only way my nephew agreed to dress up to be my other sister’s ring bearer was to explain that we would all be wearing costumes to the wedding.  As soon as he heard that, he was on board.  Now, whenever we have a family event, we always talk about what kind of costume we’ll be wearing.

But costumes aren’t just for weddings and Halloween.  My four-year-old niece can find princess attire to suit any occasion - dinner, birthday party, bowling.  And my nephew certainly knows how to dress up creatively.  I think Spiderman cowboy was my favorite, with Batman storm trooper coming in a close second.

To help them celebrate, this year I made them some chocolate ginger cookies.

Chocolate Ginger Halloween Cookies (adapted from allrecipes.com)

2 c sugar

1 ¼ c butter

2 eggs

2 t vanilla

2 ½ c flour

¾ c cocoa powder

1 t ground ginger

1 t baking soda

½ t salt

For topping

1/3 c sugar

1 t ground ginger

About 50 mellowcreme pumpkins

¼ c mini chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350°F.

In a large bowl, beat together butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Add eggs and vanilla and combine thoroughly.

Gradually beat in flour, cocoa powder, ginger, baking soda, and salt until combined.

In a small bowl, stir together sugar and ginger.

Roll dough into 1-inch balls and then roll in sugar-ginger mixture.

pretend this isn't blurry

Bake for 8-10 minutes. While the cookies are baking, melt chocolate chips.

When the cookies come out of the oven, dip the bottom of the pumpkins in the melted chocolate and place a pumpkin on each cookie.  Wait about 5 minutes and then transfer the cookies to a rack to finish cooling.

 

Apple Cider Caramels

My no pumpkin pledge has already been severely tested.  In the past couple of days, my aunt has sent me not one, but two mouth-watering pumpkin recipes. Ack!

Holding firm to my promise, however, I threw caution to the wind again and cooked some sugar. This is quite a lucky streak for me – not one burn or cut.

I did, however, run into a door at work, so I guess it all evens out.

Anyway. . . this time I tried apple cider caramels (with not one drop of pumpkin).

Basically, you boil 2 cups of apple cider down to 1/3 cup.  My house smelled wonderful during this process.

cooking sugar

Then you boil sugar, water, and a bit of cream to a scary-high temperature.  Off the heat, you add more cream, the cider, lots of wonderful spices, and butter and bring the mixture back up to the soft ball stage.  It’s that easy. 

stirring in cream, cider, and butter

cooking caramel

The recipe makes a soft, not-sticky-enough-to-destroy-dental-work caramel. Blondie's Cake and Things has wonderful directions, so I’ll send you right to her blog.  I followed her recipe exactly.

 And, after spending a couple hours cutting parchment paper and slicing and wrapping caramels, I’m definitely going to remember her story about seeing caramels packaged in long logs. No more wrapping tiny pieces of candy for me!

Pumpkin Muffins

Okay, I guess it’s obvious that I’m in a bit of a pumpkin rut – or is it just a pumpkin patch? 

Either way, I just can’t seem to help myself.  Fall means pumpkin – pumpkin bar cookies, pumpkin caramels, pumpkin chocolate chip donuts, and even pumpkin cream puffs. Yum!

Halloween is just around the corner.  Maybe I’m remembering all those fun evenings scooping out pumpkin goop.  My sisters and I would draw faces on the pumpkins and our dad would do the knife work.

When it would get dark, he’d head outside with a lit jack-o-lantern and do a little dance in front of the dining room window while we giggled at the floating pumpkin head.

So if you’ll bear with me for one more pumpkin recipe, I promise to branch out and embrace the many other flavors of fall.  In fact, I believe apple cider caramels are calling my name. . .

Pumpkin Muffins (adapted from Smitten Kitchen)

1 c canned pumpkin

1/3 c vegetable oil

2 eggs

1 t pumpkin pie spice

½ t ground ginger 

1 t cinnamon

1 ¼ c sugar

1 t salt

1 ½ c flour

1 t baking powder

½ t baking soda

¾ c dried cranberries

Topping

1 t sugar

½ t cinnamon

½ c chopped pecans

Preheat oven to 375°F.  Put liners in muffin tins.

In a large bowl, stir together pumpkin, oil, eggs, pumpkin pie spice, ginger, cinnamon, sugar, and salt until thoroughly mixed.

Add flour, baking powder, and baking soda. Stir until just combined. Fold in cranberries.

To make topping, stir together cinnamon and sugar in a small bowl.

Divide batter among the muffin cups and sprinkle cinnamon-sugar mixture and pecans over tops.

Bake until golden brown and muffins spring back with a light touch, about 18 to 20 minutes.

Makes 12 muffins.

Yes, Cat, I'm bringing them to the office tomorrow.

Mini Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Donuts

You wouldn’t think they’d have enough room, but two full grown Sams share space inside my head.

During the work day, Control Freak Sam is given free reign.  She nags authors mercilessly about deadlines, meticulously corrects grammar, and constantly updates the status reports of her many projects.  This Sam makes sure the bills are paid, errands are run, and the house is cleaned (occasionally cleaned – let’s not go overboard).

           

But once work is done and the dog has been walked, fed, and given her meds, Flaky Artist Sam comes out to play. This is the Sam who pours over cookbook, spends too much time on Pinterest, and thinks, mini pumpkin donuts look good, but mini pumpkin chocolate chip donuts would be even better.  And when taking the donuts from the oven, this Sam decides to whip up a chocolate glaze and scatter some sprinkles on top.

Mini Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Donuts (adapted from Culinary Cory)

2 c flour

1 ½ t baking powder

½ t salt

3 t pumpkin pie spice

½ c brown sugar

1 c canned pumpkin

2 eggs

2T milk

¼ c butter, softened

1t vanilla

Preheat oven to 375°F and grease mini donut pan.

In a medium bowl, combine flour, salt, and pumpkin pie spice. In another bowl, cream together brown sugar, pumpkin, eggs, milk, butter, and vanilla until well combined. Slowly add in flour mixture, just until combined.

Fill prepared pan with dough and bake 6 to 8 minutes, until donuts spring back when touched.  Cool completely.

Makes 3 dozen mini donuts

Chocolate Glaze

¾ c chocolate chips

3 T butter

1 T corn syrup

1 t vanilla

In a small bowl, melt chocolate, butter, and corn syrup.  I microwaved the mixture for two 20-second intervals and two 10-second intervals, stirring between each interval. Them, stir in vanilla and drizzle over cooled donuts.