Pretzel Toffee Brownies

Our memories are important to who we are, and have great power in our lives. But I was recently reminded that forgetting can also be a powerful thing. This lesson is brought to you through another recipe from the Needs Baked archives, another of my recipes of future past, as life has gotten in the way of baking recently. I was reminded of this recipe the other day when I was reading another blog.

Here’s the story. One day, many moons ago, I went looking for a brownie recipe, and I came across the one I used for the brownies pictured here. I made it, it was good, and my life went on its merry way. However, this was before I had started the blog, so I wasn’t keeping track of recipes.

Apparently everything was blurry that far in the past.

Some time after I made it, I thought I would make it again. I went searching for the recipe, but I couldn’t remember which one I used. I searched for a while, but I was unable to find it. That made me sad. 😦 But I already had my heart set on making these again, so I had to find another recipe. Back to the internet! (Much less grueling than back to the mines, I would presume.)

After much searching, I found and settled on another recipe. You’ve seen that one already. It’s the Baked brownie with pretzels and toffee. That one was delicious. This one was good (it must have been for me to want to make it again), but that one was much better. So in some sense, I have to thank myself for losing track of this one, as it led me to that one.

What possessed me to make this one in the first place I don’t know. Was it an interest in toffee? A yearning for pretzels? Unfortunately, that is lost to the sands of time. But it brought me eventually to the Baked brownie recipe, which is amazing, and is now my go to brownie recipe, pretzels and toffee or no.

So as I said, these were good. If I could find the recipe, I might be curious enough to try making them again to see what the difference was. But with a much more delicious recipe in tow, I’m not that motivated.

But it begs the question, how many pretzel toffee brownie recipes are out there? It’s an interesting idea, but it’s not universal like chocolate chip cookies. Now I’m curious, who came up with it first? Anyone have any good techniques for recipe forensics?

As I said, I don’t know what recipe I used back then. A little more digging now makes me think that the below recipe is a possible candidate. But we’ll never know for sure. If you try it, let me know how it is. I would also recommend the Baked brownie recipe above, as I know you can’t go wrong there.

Possible recipe source: Recipe Girl.

Caramel Apple Cider Cookies

I can honestly say I’m not a time traveler. The closest I get is watching Doctor Who. Watching and wishing I could follow him into the past and see what things were like in a different time. But the next closest I get is probably by rediscovering old recipes. It’s like a window into the past. Not a door I can step through unfortunately, but a window I can peek into and observe from a different perspective.

If you had asked me when I made this recipe, I couldn’t have told you. But in looking up the photos I took when I made it, I see that it was made in September of 2013. It’s what I like to call one of my “recipes of future past“. It harkens back to a time before I was really writing the blog and taking careful notes. So, I’m not even sure what recipe I used. I’ve included a recipe at the end to give you an idea, but you’ll have to use your judgement, as I can’t vouch for that one in particular.

I do remember what the impetus for the recipe was, though. I had some apple syrup I wanted to use. In theory, this is to be used for making drinks with. But, adventurous baker that I am, I thought it would be fun to use it to make a cookie infused with appley goodness.

So I had the idea for the star ingredient for the cookie, now I needed a recipe. I did a little digging around, because of course someone must have done this before. I did find some apple cider cookies, but they all used this apple cider drink mix. I couldn’t really find one which used a syrup. So I had to do some digging to figure out how much apple cider would be made by the drink mix. Then I had to figure out how much of the syrup would be used to make a similar amount. Then I tried using that amount in the cookies, in order to have a similar apple potency.

I don’t remember at this point if I compensated for the fact that the drink mix was powder and the syrup was liquid. As we know, having different ratios of solids and liquids than the recipe originally calls for could have unintended consequences. I don’t know if that’s what caused the issue, but there was definitely an issue.

As the name implies, these cookies call for caramel. These days, when I need caramel, I generally like to make it myself. However, I made this recipe before I started making my own caramel, so I used the pre-made kind. The cookies were fairly straightforward to make, and right before baking you stick a caramel into each cookie. The cookies cooked fine, but the caramel was unhappy.

I tried to pull the cookies off the baking sheet, but the caramel hadn’t melted properly. As you might be able to see from the pictures, the cookies kinda fell apart. That’s because the caramel sat like a small, yummy, and unmovable brick in the middle of the cookies. The cookies themselves were fine, but the brick wouldn’t move with the cookies. In each case it basically separated out, and took a good chunk of the cookie with it.

I’m not sure if I didn’t cook them long enough, if the caramels were too cold when I baked them, if I didn’t form the cookies properly, or if the aforementioned solid/liquid ratio was the issue. I’d have to give them another shot to investigate why.

I remember the cookies as being good. They weren’t the best recipe I ever made, but they were good. I mean apple and caramel together in a cookie, right? Right.

If you try these, please let me know how they turn out. I’d love to hear your stories. And if you have any good ideas for using apple cider in a baked good, I’d love to hear about that, too. I just recently came into a good quantity of apple cider, so I might be tempted to try something else.

Probable recipe source: The Cooking Photographer.*

*I say probable, because I can’t remember where I got the original recipe. But it looks like this is the original version, regardless of where I found it.

Swedish Chocolate Cake

Besides just talking about yummy food, I’d also like to talk to you about family. My family, that is. Did I ever tell you the story about my long-lost Swedish cousins? Since this week’s recipe is Swedish, it seems like a good opportunity.

So, back in the day my great-grandmother, Esther Grünberger, lived with her family in a town which was then in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It was told it was known as Ungvar or Uzgorod. (It’s now in the Ukraine.) Family history tells me that young Esther got on a boat by herself – that is to say without the rest of her family, not completely by herself – and sailed to the United States at the age of 12 or 13. Can you imagine that? That’s a big trip to take at any age let alone at that age, and by yourself.

Earlier, her older brother had worked his way across Europe and ended up in Stockholm. Despite being far apart, Esther and her brother (I don’t remember his name) managed to stay in touch through letters. Until at one point, I believe it was between the two world wars, they lost touch and the family was separated.

Fast forward to a few years ago. My aunt (my mom’s sister) and uncle like to travel a lot. On a trip to Stockholm, they remembered this story and tried to do something about it. They were armed only with the family story and the family name. Seeing as how Grünberger is not a Swedish name, they figured they had a decent shot at finding our long-lost family.

So they picked up the Stockholm phone book (as I said, this was a few years ago) and just started calling anyone with the last name Grünberger. I have to say, this took a lot of chutzpah. To just randomly start calling people from the phone book in a foreign country with only a name and a vague family story? Wow.

Well as you might imagine, they struck out a lot. But eventually, they talked to someone who said it sounded familiar. I believe they then got an older relative on the phone who discussed it further. Did they find them? Or could there possibly have been another set of Grünbergers with a lost family connection?

Well after much discussion, they finally found the clincher. They faxed family pictures back and forth. (As I said, it was a few years ago.) It turns out they both had the same family picture. It was them! We had found our long-lost Swedish cousins.

What followed was a bunch of people visiting their cousins across the sea. Over the years, several people on the US side went to Sweden to visit, and several on the Swedish side came to the US to visit. So for instance, my mom and her sister met a bunch of their 2nd cousins and vice versa. I met a 3rd cousin of mine, etc. It’s been great getting to know them. There are some similarities and some differences. But interestingly enough, they feel like family.

Oh, and we found out why the two sides had lost touch in the first place. It turns out Esther’s brother had gotten divorced and then moved. When that happened, his ex-wife didn’t forward his mail to him. Mystery solved!

One more mystery that just now occurred to me is what happened to the rest of the family back in their home town? Did they stay there? Did they end up leaving too? I probably need to ask my mom or my aunt. They might know.

So now that you know the story of my lovely Swedish cousins, let me tell you the story about this lovely Swedish cake. If this recipe is any indication of the deliciousness of Swedish recipes, I totally should have been asking my Swedish family for recipes. However, when I met them I did not know such a recipe existed, so I did not get it from them. I got it how I often get recipes, just randomly looking through the interwebs. It looked easy and delicious, and when I showed the picture to my wife to see if she was interested, it took her about .0001 seconds to give me a resounding yes.

Some dry ingredients.

Some melted butter.

Having decided to make it, I then tried to figure out what size pan to use. I went from the first recipe I found, to the one it linked to, to the one it came from originally, to an earlier version of that one. It took all that digging to figure out that the recipe called for a springform pan. I used mine which I believe is 9″.

Batter up!

I ended up using the second version from the original author, but I also used bits of info from the others, so I’m including those for reference. I’ll also note here that I didn’t have salted butter so I added 1/2 tsp salt, and I didn’t have vanilla sugar so I used vanilla extract.

Into the pan!

It’s a very simple recipe. I measured out the dry ingredients and preheated the oven. Then I melted the butter and greased and floured the pan. I mixed the dry ingredients and the vanilla and eggs into the melted butter. Then I poured it into the pan.

Normally I wait to preheat the oven because it takes me longer than the recipe indicates to prepare it. But I had a sense of how quick the recipe would be, and I was right. The oven became ready just before I finished it. It really came together quickly. I put it in the oven and baked it for 20 minutes. It didn’t seem quite set around the edges so I put it back in for 5 more minutes. That seemed good.

I let it cool. It was a little bit hard to get it out of the pan. I used a plastic knife. I was able to pull it away from the sides, and I pulled the side of the springform pan off. I tried getting it off the bottom, but it was challenging. I was able to get part of it, but then it wouldn’t come all the way. So I left it in the pan. I sprinkled the powdered sugar on top. I was able to cut and pull pieces away with a plastic knife and a spatula.

I think it was because I didn’t grease it well enough. I used cooking spray, but there was something wrong with the nozzle and it wasn’t coming out right. I thought I had gotten it well-greased, but maybe not. (It’s also possible that I cooked it a little too long.)

It’s supposed to be warm, but we had it as is, which was a little bit warm, but basically room temperature. It was rich, chocolately, chewy, and moist. Subtle and delicious. Not too sweet. Nice crunchy outside. Nice contrast between the crunchy and the chewy. Yummy! I couldn’t eat more than a slice because it was so rich. (And I might have cut the slices too big.) It reminded me of flourless chocolate cake.

My wife referred to it as “happy chocolate cake”. Also, because of the troubles I had getting it out of the pan, she said that if I had to make it again to iron out the kinks, she would support that. Thanks, hon! 🙂

So there you have it. A little bit of cake and a little bit of history. The cake is very easy, and very much worth your time to make. I challenge you to find a quicker and more delicious cake. (Seriously.) And family history, I love that too. Feel free to share either below!

Recipe originally found at Confessions of a Frosting Fanatic.

Which pointed to the recipe at A Cozy Kitchen.

Who got the recipe from Top With Cinnamon. There were two listings of this recipe. The original one, and a revisited version, which I used.

Granola Brownies

When I was growing up, I used to experiment in the kitchen. I experimented everywhere really, now that I think of it. I would pull things apart (old telephones and radios and such) and put them back together just to see how they worked. I once built a crude transformer (the robot car not the electrical device) out of Legos. I taught myself how to use computers by double-clicking on every file on the computer to see what it did.

The kitchen was no different. I learned some basics by working alongside my mom on lots of recipes, but I obviously didn’t learn everything. There were some mishaps, but one in particular comes to mind. I remember making a cake using what I had on hand. It was a lemon cinnamon cake, a bold flavor mixture to be sure. But what really made it stand out was the texture. It came out as a dense, rubbery mess. Fascinating, but inedible. I think where I went wrong was not knowing the right proportions to use as far as solids, liquids, fats, and leavening. I’m pretty sure I used baking soda and baking powder in it, but I couldn’t tell you how much.

Experimenting was totally fun, whether it worked out or not. I don’t always get to experiment as much these days, but baking is one place where I can. This recipe was a bit of an experiment. It was also a “use what you have on hand” or “clean out the pantry” type of recipe. I wanted to try to make something new. And I wanted to use up a bunch of oats, pretzel M&M’s, and various bits and bobs of chocolate (leftover from previous recipes).

I came up with the idea for oatmeal crusted brownies. The chocolate crusted banana blondies served as inspiration. I thought I would make a crust with the oats and M&M’s and put it on a regular brownie. So I used the brownie part of the pretzel toffee brownies, and I used the aforementioned blondie recipe for rough numbers/instructions on how to put the crust together.

I lightly ground the oats in the food processor to make them more like quick oats. Then I did the same with the M&M’s, but more so, as they were bigger to begin with. I made sure the total volume was the same as the crust in the original recipe. Unfortunately, I didn’t take good notes while I was making it, but the prep I had done ahead of time suggested that I used 2 cups of oats and 1 cup of M&M’s. I mixed the two together (along with the butter, brown sugar, and salt) and baked the crust per the original recipe.

You’ll notice the different bits and bobs of chocolate.

Once that was done, I made the brownies following the instructions from that recipe. (One thing I do differently is I just melt the chocolate in the microwave. You do it for short bursts, mixing and checking each time.) Then I poured it over the crust and baked it. I thought about putting stuff on top, but I figured the crust had enough stuff in it.

I was originally going to call them “oatmeal and pretzel M&M crusted brownies”. But then I would have put people to sleep by the time I finished saying the name. Thankfully I settled on “granola brownies”. Partially because it’s shorter and easier to say, but more importantly, they taste kinda like granola. You can definitely taste the oats, but you only get a hint of the M&M’s.

If I had originally set out to make granola brownies, I probably would have gone about it differently. I would have used different ingredients and possibly constructed it differently. So now that I stumbled upon them, I may have to put some thought into the recipe and try again.

I may also try making these again but differently. One thought I had was to use less oats, grind them up a bit more, and then add in some other flour. This way I could make them oaty without having the oats be overpowering. Another thought I had was to grind up the M&M’s less, so their flavor would be more pronounced. Also worth considering is making a crumble with the oats and M&M’s and sprinkling it on top.

Why so much effort into re-imagining them? Well, the reaction to them was mixed. People generally really liked the brownie. This makes sense, as I’ve used this brownie recipe before, and it’s awesome. But the granola part didn’t go over as well. I really liked that part of it, but others not as much. I don’t think anyone hated the oats, but they didn’t really do anything for most people, so they were just kind of in the way. And who wants to have something in the way when you’re enjoying dessert?

Upside-down shot

So, lots to ponder here as to how to redo these. If anyone has any other thoughts, ideas, or suggestions, I’d love to hear them. And if you have any of your own experimental recipes/stories that you want to share, please do!

Granola crust adapted from this recipe from The New York Times.

Brownie recipe courtesy of Baked, via The Crepes of Wrath.