This week's TMST is a sweet treat from one of my childhood friends, who blogs under the moniker The One With the Red Stethoscope. Her blog is filled with stories about the woes of being a med student + her relationship with her super sweet beau, whom she refers to as The Lawyer. The following recipe is for brownies with some autumnal flair!
I love baking special, beautiful things
at holidays! It’s like an excuse to let your creative energies run wild and
make festive works of art that are as delicious to eat, as they are pretty to
look at. Unfortunately, I always
run into two problems: timing and transport.
I’ve been both a host of Thanksgiving dinner
and also an invited guest at someone else’s feast. As a host, I usually feel
frenetic and distracted as I run back and forth between multiple dishes. As a guest, I’m usually traveling long
distances (often by air), so finding a recipe that can be made ahead and
transported is nearly impossible.
Enter Pumpkin Swirl Brownies!
These brownies are surprisingly easy to
make, transport very easily in a Tupperware container, and actually taste
better the next day (so if you’re the host, you can make these ahead)! They also lend a nod to the traditional
pumpkin flavors of Thanksgiving, while being a little different and new. Best
of all, they look really great, with very minimal effort,
so you don’t have to
be an expert baker to make them!
What You’ll Need:
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
6 oz. semisweet chocolate, chopped, or 1 cup chocolate chips
4 large eggs
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 tsp. vanilla
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup pumpkin puree
3 Tbsp. canola oil
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
Full recipe found here
on Babble.
First, combine flour, baking soda, and
salt in a medium sized mixing bowl.
If you have a sifter, sift ingredients together. If you don’t, gently
agitate the dry ingredients with a dry whisk. This will aerate the flour and break up any clumps. Set this bowl aside.
In a separate bowl, combine eggs,
vanilla, and sugar.
Using a mixer, beat the wet ingredients
on medium speed for 3-4 minutes, or until the mixture is a soft, foamy
yellow.
Slowly add the dry ingredients to the egg/sugar
mixture by folding large spoonfuls of the flour mixture in. Once all of the dry ingredients have
been incorporated, mix on high for approximately 30 seconds or until all
ingredients are combined.
Separate approximately 1/3 of this batter
into another bowl. You can use a
scale to measure, or just eyeball it.
This recipe is very forgiving, so you can just guesstimate this. Set the two bowls of batter aside. In a small bowl, combine butter and
semi-sweet chocolate. The original
recipe calls for melting on the stove, but I just use the microwave.
Microwave on high for about 20 seconds,
or until the mixture looks like this:
Be careful with this step, as chocolate
tends to retain its shape even after its melted and can get deceptively hot and
burn quickly. When you stir the
melted chocolate mixture together, it should be this consistency:
To the larger 2/3 of batter, add the
melted chocolate/butter and stir together. To the smaller 1/3 of batter, add the pumpkin, cinnamon, and
nutmeg. Mix together with a wooden
spoon.
In a 9x9 greased pan, add slightly more
than half of the chocolate batter.
It will be very firm, so use your spoon to spread to the edges of the
pan.
On top of this, add your pumpkin mixture
and spread with a spoon.
Finally, add the remainder of the
chocolate batter to the top of the pan in large spoonfuls. Use a butter knife to spread this top
layer out, but don’t try to keep the layers separate.
Instead, insert the knife deep into the
center of the pan and gently fold the layers together, creating a swirled
effect. The final product will
look really messy and you may worry that you’ve messed the whole thing up, but that’s
exactly how it should look! The
different densities of the layers will keep them separate, so don’t worry.
Place the pan in a 350 degree oven and
bake for 40 minutes. A toothpick
inserted in the center will be slightly wet when finished.
Set pan aside to cool, and cut brownies
into 16 even squares.
The effect of the “swirl” will make a
stunning presentation.
If you’re feeling even fancier, you can
use the same recipe to make mini pumpkins, like this (tutorial available from
Family Circle magazine here):
Bake mini pumpkins at 350 degrees for 15-20
minutes or until a toothpick in center comes out clean. If you’re going to go
the fancy route, I suggest frosting the pumpkins on the same plate and in the
same location that you intend to serve them, as they don’t transport well!
But…
How stinkin’ cute are they? So, go forth, make delicious things, and
impress your family this Thanksgiving.
