PEANUT BUTTER PRETZEL BROWNIES

It’s summer, and we’re back, bitchez. Because we have loads of free time, and our menfolk just loaded up with more baking supplies than our post-Senior Week bodies are prepared to deal with. (Sidenote: stop by H206 and eat our food. Please.)

You will need:

2 1/2 cups crushed pretzels

1 stick butter

1 box brownie mix and associated ingredients

2 tablespoons butter

a splash of milk (sorry, I made this up, I don’t know)

3/4 cup creamy peanut butter

a cup of chocolate chips? no idea

First thing is pretzel crust. Crush pretzels and mix with 1 stick melted butter. Press into the bottom of a brownie pan and bake at 350 for like 7 minutes, until kinda crispy. Do not dump baked pretzels into the bottom of the oven, as this will fill the kitchen with smoke and put you at risk of setting off sprinklers the second night you’re in the apartment.

Crusing pretzels. Also, keep an eye out for our new blog: Cooking and Cleavage.

Pretzel crush. And more cleavage, cause Erin loves her friends.

While that’s hopefully not happening, mix up brownie mix. When the crust is done (not being scraped out of the bottom of your heated oven with a cheese grater and cookie sheet), pour brownie mix on top and bake for what your box suggests.

Definitely don't turn off the oven- that wastes time.

Now time for ganache! Put the last 4 ingredients in a microwave safe bowl, and heat for 30 seconds. Stir. Do another 30 seconds. Taste. Marvel. While brownies are warm, spread ganache on top and add toppings (chocolate chips, Reese’s pieces, pretzels). Refrigerate to set ganache, and cut with a plastic knife when cool.

PI DAY CHOCOLATE MINT PIE

I woke up thinking it was just an ordinary Wednesday, but a “Happy Pi Day! What are you baking?!” text reminded me about this glorious holiday. And by glorious, I mean mostly celebrated in accelerated and honors math classes. I didn’t have time to go to Safeway, so this baby is thrown together with whatever we had around the house at the time. Feed your inner nerd with the following:

half a box of Girl Scout thin mints

2 to 3 tablespoons butter

1 box instant pudding (used sugar-free to balance out the GSC)

1 carton vanilla yogurt

1 1/2 cups milk

smidge peppermint extract (really, like a drop)

pretty sprinkles

In case you need ANOTHER reason to buy Girl Scout cookies. Besides pie.

Start by smushing your cookies. I used my fingers, because I’m an animal. You could alternatively use... a fork? a food processor? I don’t know what kids are doing these days. You want itty bitty crumbs. Melt your butter, and mix it in there. Pack the crumbs into the bottom of a greased pie plate and bake at 350 for... 7 minutes. Or so. You just want to make it a little crispy.

In the meantime, combine instant pudding mix, yogurt, milk, and peppermint extract. Whisk. It’ll get really thick really fast, so don’t be scared. When your crust is moderately cooled, scoop pudding on top and spread it out. Sprinkle with sprinkles, and lick the bowl while the pie is setting in the fridge. Or eat immediately. I don’t have pictures... it all disappeared fairly quickly, sorry!

VALENTINES BOURBON BALLS

I don’t mean to brag, but I’m pretty damn adorable. And so are these Valentine’s Day cake balls. Also, let’s be real, these get back to the heart and soul of the crackden: alcoholic dessert.

This was my first time making cake balls, so there was some ghetto cooking that went on. Also a pretty steep learning curve... If you haven’t done this before, just plan on cringing at the sight of the first few and passing them off on a non-judgmental roommate. Skip over to Safeway/Waggie’s and procure the following:

Red Velvet cake mix plus necessary ingredients

Cream cheese icing

Chocolate chips

liiiiiiitle bit of butter

Bourbon 

Girly pink sprinkles

First thing mix and bake your cake, you’re going to have to let it completely cool before you can move on. When it’s entirely cool, crumble the cake into a very large bowl. The recipe I had consulted for this recommended 1/4 cup of bourbon... but you should about triple that. If it’s supposed to taste like bourbon, it should actually taste like bourbon. Next, mix in your icing. Because you added more bourbon, take it a little easy on the icing, and don’t quite add all of the container. Mix thoroughly, and put in the freezer until it gets firm.

Use this as an opportunity to rearrange your freezer, because you will need a LOT of room, and cover two cookie sheets in wax paper. When the cake/icing mix is firm-ish, use your hands to roll spoonfuls into 1 inch balls and put the trays back into the freezer for another hour. If they look kinda fuzzy or spikey when you take them out, that’s fine, just re-roll to smooth them out and re-freeze for a bit.

In the meantime, melt your chocolate with a few tablespoons of butter in a double-boiler. In case you haven’t melted chocolate like this before, you need a pot filled with simmering water on the stove, and you place a metal bowl filled with the chocolate chips on top of that. 

**Note: I consulted with Alissa, who is an expert in cake balls, and she says that chocolate chips are actually pretty hard to work with (after this, I would agree). You’re better off with candy melts or almond bark. However, chocolate chips are definitely easier to find, so there’s trade offs.**

Toss a frozen cake ball in, and use a fork to roll it around to get it coated and to scoop it out onto your wax papered cookie sheet. Because of all the booze, they’re not quite as firm as normal cake balls, so be gentle. Immediately sprinkle with girly pink sprinkles, because chocolate chips set pretty quickly. You might need to re-freeze the cake balls if they’re getting too soft to work with,  I had to do that a couple of times and it makes them much easier to work with.

Messy, but delicious.

You’re done when you run out of chocolate or balls, whichever comes first. Freeze overnight to make sure everything sets, and offer up to all of your loved ones to celebrate :)

"You need one with the bourbon!" -Kate, our lovely and talented photographer

rejection cookies. healthy rejection cookies.

Now, I know what you're thinking. Wow Kilbride. WOMP. To which I say, you knew you were reading a cooking blog written by college seniors in the height of their job-seeking neurosis. So deal with it. That said, I wanted to make healthy rejection cookies because unemployed and fat is just too much for me to handle. And we descend on the Dominican in 34 days. Wallowing in self pity is no excuse to use more butter than Paula Dean. As such, I give thee: healthy rejection cookies. In all lower case because you're sad and without job.

Scavenge & secure:

1 cup Whole wheat flour
little baking powder
little salt
1 cup instant oats
1/2 stick butter
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/3 cup white sugar
1/3 cup brown sugar
little vanilla
egg
a rejection-appropriate amount of chocolate chips

You know how this works. All the dry stuff (first part of the list thru the oats) goes in a medium bowl. Soften the butter in a big bowl in the microwave, add oil, sugars, vanilla, and the egg. Mix til its all smooth and such. Add in all the dry stuff, taking time to appreciate how healthy you are despite your propensity for life-long failure. And hyperbole.

rejection. now with fewer calories.

Once its all mixed add in unseemly amounts of chocolate chips. Which you can do because your saintly roommate stocked up during last week's string of rejections. Old rejected selves lookin out for new rejected selves. Classic.

Eat most of the cookie dough. Bake whats left for 15ish minutes on 350 degrees. Pass out to roomies, accept their assurance that rejection cookies are yummy. Small victories.

peace.love.summerhousing2012herewecome

HAMBURGER CAKE

In honor of Danny coming down to Georgetown next week, we’re gonna give him another recipe shout-out, cause that’s how we show affection :)Danny turned old this summer, and Eclaire and I wanted to give him a birthday cake that rivaled his bacon bouquet.

We tried all versions of “meat” and “cake” that Google had to offer, and briefly contemplated a bacon-dark chocolate cake before deciding to go in a hamburgerly direction. This hamburger cake requires the following:

2 cake-in-a-boxes, maybe one yellow and one chocolate, and associated eggs, oil, etc
food coloring- yellow, green, red
chocolate chips
1 tup white icing, 1 tub chocolate icing

Mix up your cakes. You need two normal round cake pans and a metal bowl that can be baked, about the same diameter as your cake pan. Fill one cake pan a little over half-ish with chocolate for the patty. Fill the other cake pan full with yellow cake mix, and fill the bowl with all the cake mix you have left. This is a bun. Bake. Gonna take a bit longer for the bun, so just keep an eye on them.

While everything is cooling, put a heaping spoonful of white icing into each of three ziplock bags for decorating. Add food coloring so you get ketchup, lettuce, and sesame seed colors. To make bun color, I suggest adding a spoonful or so of chocolate to the white icing and then maybe a few drops of yellow. Go slowly, cause it’s really hard to fix if you make it too dark. Using a blender/magic bullet/knife and patience, grate up a heaping half cup of chocolate chips and stir them into the chocolate icing. Mmmm.... meat.

Now all you have to do is decorate! Start with the bottom bun, and work your way up. In this picture, we used colored corn syrup for ketchup, but that shit’s outta control.

TRIFLE: white chocolate mint brownie magic

Think brownies, white chocolate mint mousse, chocolate pudding, and holiday happiness. You will haz all the happy. I promise.

Okay so, the prelude to this one's gonna come atchu in steps. Cause I like numbers and lists.

Step 1. Ship your twin off to Africa.
Step 2. Wallow in hopeless, dark despair for 3 months. Conclude only possible respite is preparing a trifle for her glamorous homecoming.
Step 3. Violently desire trifle dish. Search everywhere, high / low, near / far, hither / yon, etc.
Step 4. Fail miserably. Realize no one knows what you're talking about, and find no such dish. Settle back into grief and self loathing.
Step 5. Recall that you tutor for fancy Georgetown family. Upon next visit to their mansion, casually mention your casual need for a trifle dish. Be slightly disappointed when they don't have one you can borrow. Sadness.
Step 6. Wake up next morning to discover fancy Georgetown mom standing outside your door with not one, but TWO brand new trifle dishes. Express genuine, unabated glee. Truly, a Christmas miracle.

And now onto trifle making. Ingredients:

Boxed brownie mix (plus the eggs / oil / water it says you need)
Heavy cream
4 egg yolks
Sugar
White chocolate chips
2 packages Chocolate Pudding mix (plus the milk it says you need)
Brand new trifle dish
Leo's mints, stolen
Arab slave helper
Mint extract

White Chocolate Mint Mousse: The night before you want to have the trifle ready, you make the mousse. From scratch. Seriously. Start by beating 4 eggs yolks with an electric mixer (I know, I always use a fork too, but for this its actually important. Unless you have a bionic arm.) Add in 1/4 cup of white sugar.

Heat up one cup of the heavy whipping cream in a small pot on the stove (note: a real recipe would invoke the term "saucepan" here ... but who the hell has ever made sauce in one of those?). Don't let it boil or anything, just until its hot. Put half of it into the egg/sugar bowl, mix, then add that all back to the remaining cream in the pot. Continue cooking this creamy egg stuff for a few minutes over low heat STIRRING CONSTANTLY. Add in the white chocolate chips, stirring until they melt. Now, I missed that part about stirring constantly. And yes, that did mean that I had, temporarily, concocted not white chocolate mousse, but white chocolate scrambled eggs. It was heartbreaking. So yeah. Don't do that. Stir constantly bitches.

Refrigerate the above masterpiece (covered) for about 2 hours. Now beat 1 and a 1/2 cups of heavy whipping cream in a bowl, fold this into the now-cold egg mixture. Cover, and put this whole thing into the frig again, leave it there overnight.

Brownies: Do what it says on the box. Cool completely. Like actually completely. Again, I never follow that direction but this time its important. This is an excellent time to utilize your Arab kitchen slave, if he isn't busy with vegetables, which they often are.

And he won't mind, because his other option was working with crazy meat lady:

Chocolate pudding: Again, read box instructions. Follow them. Now take a second to breathe, cause shits about to get real.

Magic & Mystery: Because you follow directions perfectly and allowed the brownies to cool (before your roommate ripped them out to make broccoli something-or-other in the pan), you can easily cut them all into small one inch rectangley-square things. Arrange half of these in a gorgeous circle on the bottom of your trifle dish (having settled on the smaller dish at the recommendation of your Arab. They're good with spacial reality.) Fill in small holes in the brownie circle with more brownie, obvi. Now spoon half of the chocolate pudding on top of the brownie layer and smooth out. Thats layer #2. WOW.

Next, get ambitious, and add a few teaspoons of mint extract to your mouse, gently mix it in. Now spoon half of your MAGICAL MOUSSE YOU MADE FROM SCRATCH into the trifle as your third layer. Repeat the brownie-pudding-mousse layers, pausing to absolutely flip out before the second layer of brownies because you don't know if they'll sink and ruin the whole thing. Another great job for your Arab: taking initiative and really gettin' after it with the second brownie layer, fearless.

After 2 or 3 victory laps around the house and squealing for your twin's approval, put the finished trifle in the frig and go to the gym. Cause you're gonna get fat tonight.

On the way back from the gym, casual saunter into Leo's and steal some of their red and white mints. Hide them in your Nalgene, and GTFO.

At home, put the mints in a plastic bag, and beat them with the back end of scissors (because you can't seem to locate a mallet). Sprinkle on trifle. Succumb to your child like glee (and apparent psychosis):

SERVE AND BE DELIGHTED. HAPPY HOLIDAYS FRIENDS.

p.s. as always, photocred to Erica Begoun.

CHRISTMAS COOKIE SHOTS

An adoring fan recently pointed out that the most difficult part of the holiday season is having to choose between drinking and dessert. Well, here at Crack Den Cookies, we believe that no one should ever have to choose between their two favorite categories of edibles. And, as enablers, we’re going to make sure you have the tools you need to get both fat and drunk.

First: the cookie shot glasses. You will need:

1 heaping cup flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 stick butter 

1/4 heaping cup brown sugar

1/4 heaping cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1 egg

1 cup MINI chocolate chips. MINI, I SAID.

mini-muffin tins and mini-muffin-paper-liners


Note: this is a halved recipe, so when I say heaping, I mean heaping. I’m not gonna tell you to measure out eighths of a cup, because that’s stupid.

Next, from the liquor store...

1 container alcoholic whipped cream. Your liquor store will have it, just ask.

vanilla vodka

creme de cacao

amaretto

Mix together butter and sugars, then mix in egg and vanilla. In another bowl, mix together the flour, baking soda, and salt, then add that to the wet stuff and mix in your chocolate chips.

While your oven is preheating to 375, line your mini-muffin tin. Drop 1-inch-diameter cookie dough balls into your muffin tins, then bake for about 15 minutes until nicely golden brown. When you take them out of the oven, the centers will start to fall, and that’s actually what you want. Use your fingers (or the handle of a knife if, like Paul, you believe that the use of tools separates humans from chimpanzees) and poke down the center until you have a nice little cookie cup. 

While the cookie cups are cooling, mix up your shots. 2-1-1 vodka, creme de cacao, and amaretto.

Fill cookie cups with your whip-a-hol. Shoot shot. Shoot cookie. Love.

MAN COOKING

Sunday Night Mouse Movies. The few, the proud, the greatest Henle tradition since not-being-written-up-ever. After a few SNMMs filled with female-baked pies, cookies, and assorted carboloaded, chocolate covered bars, the men decided to storm the kitchen. And by that I mean Phil showed up with peanut butter and Hershey's kisses and told us to GTFO the way. Bufe helped. Cause hobbits stick together.

And I speak with utmost uncertainty when I say it involved the following :

1 stick of butter (ya, we know)
1 cup peanut butter (go with low-fat if you wanna save yourself way more guilt than is proportional to how much fat you're actually saving)
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 egg
rittle bit vanilla
rittle bit baking soda / powder / whatever / you do you
2 tablespoons of milk
1 and 1/2 cups flour
teeny bit of salt


Get out your mixing bowl (in some cultures they call it a pasta pot), and mash the butter and peanut butter together with your mashed potatoe masher, because this is man cooking and you can. It will get stuck in the masher, but fear not, you're men, and YOU CAN HANDLE THIS. Get a fork. Behold:

Add both sugars, mix, then the egg and vanilla, mix again. Summon your sous chef, secure 2 more pots, don apron (its about to get man-messy) and glare in the direction of giggling women. Mix flour, baking soda, and salt, concentrating deeply on your pot. Look generally adorable.

"its all queer domestic bliss in the foreground... and crack den in the background" (copyright: Us, 2010)

Mix until you don't feel like mixing more. Compliment self on facial hair. Combine pots.

Roll into cookie dough balls, and to add a bit more fat & sparkle to Sunday Night Mouse Movies, roll in sugar. Cause why not. Men love sugar.

Bake for 9 minutes (Not eight to ten. Nine.) at 375 (again, depending on your apartment's cooking ability) until they look like cookies. With whatever Hershey's kisses you have left after being absolutely pillaged by the fat girls that live in the apartment, press immediately into warm cookies. Utter the phrase "MAN COOKING" several more times, snuggle up to your women, and commence SNMM.