Easter Baked Treats

Easter Treats You Don’t Need To Hide

See the links at the bottom of the page for accompaniment ideas for dinner.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Eggs

A classic holiday treat made even better because you made it.
Course Dessert
Cuisine American
Keyword Chocolate coated eggs, Peanut butter eggs, Reeses copycat Eggs
Prep Time 1 hour
Cook Time 5 minutes
Total Time 1 hour 5 minutes
Servings 24 portions
Author OliveNation

Ingredients

Ingredients

  • 1/3 C Graham cracker crumbs
  • 1/3 C Powdered sugar
  • 3/4 C Smooth peanut or almond butter
  • 1 T Honey
  • 1/2 t Vanilla extract
  • 1/4 t Sea salt
  • 1/4 lb Milk or dark chocolate, chopped or discs

Instructions

  1. Combine graham cracker crumbs, powdered sugar, peanut butter, honey, vanilla, and sea salt in a stand mixer with the paddle attachment.

  2. Mix on medium speed until filling is well combined and resembles cookie dough.

  3. Divide into 24 (2-teaspoon) balls or larger. Form into an egg shape. Chill until hard.

  4. While the filling is chilling, melt chocolate in a double boiler until perfectly smooth. Dip "eggs" in chocolate and place them on a tray lined with parchment or waxed paper. Chill until hard. Store in plastic or container with lid.

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Super moist (or M-word) brownies.

Guiness Dark Ale Brownies

Alcohol does not 100% cook out of foods.  A trace remains in case that's an issue for your guests. 

The flavors of the Guinness and the cocoa are simply wonderful.  If the stout is not suitable, replace that quantity with strong room-temperature coffee.

Course Dessert
Cuisine American
Keyword Guinness Ale Brownies, Stout brownies, Stout in baking
Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 25 minutes
Cooling 15 minutes
Total Time 45 minutes
Servings 12 people
Author OliveNation

Ingredients

Ingredients

  • 1 C All-purpose flour
  • 3/4 C Dutch Process cocoa
  • 1/4 t Salt
  • 8 oz Bittersweet chocolate
  • 3/4 C White chocolate chips
  • 1 C Semi-sweet chocolate chips
  • 3 oz Unsalted butter
  • 1 C White sugar
  • 4 each Eggs, room temperature
  • 1 2/4 C Guinness Stout
  • 1/2 C Chopped pecans
  • as needed Confectioners sugar for sifting

Instructions

Procedure

  1. Place oven rack in the center position.

    Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).

    Coat a 9x13-inch baking dish with butter.  Be generous here.

  2. Sift flour, cocoa powder, and salt together in a bowl.

  3. Melt bittersweet chocolate, white chocolate chips, and butter in the top of a double boiler over simmering water, stirring frequently and scraping down the sides with a rubber spatula to avoid scorching. Remove the bowl from the pot when the chocolate is just melted.  Place on the counter.

  4. Beat white sugar and eggs together in a large bowl with an electric mixer until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.

  5. Slowly add melted chocolate mixture and mix until just combined.

  6. Mix in the stout.

  7. Add flour mixture and pecans, if using, and until the flour has been absorbed then stop mixing.

  8. Pour batter into the prepared baking dish; sprinkle semisweet chocolate chips over batter.

  9. Bake in the preheated oven until a toothpick inserted in the center of the brownies comes out with moist crumbs, 25 to 30 minutes.

  10. Cool to room temperature; dust top with confectioners' sugar. 

    If you dust the sugar on too soon, it'll be absorbed by the brownies.  It isn't bad; it has just melted.  Tastes great looks less great.

    If you can stand it, wait at least half an hour, but no one will think less of you if you can't. 

For Easter, Mother’s Day or any other Sunday Brunch, make some muffins.  Here’s my free muffins e-book with some easy and delicious muffin recipes. Just give your email address to get the link to download the book.

In case you missed my podcast episode about brownies, you can hear it here and here is the link to the recipe I discuss 228 Brownies.

Some recipes for your dinner (breakfast) table

Fluffy Pancakes

Dinner Rolls

No Knead Bread

The Recipe File

 

3 Ways Anise Makes You Happy

 

Jeopardy Stuff

Anise or aniseed, Pimpinella anisum, is very similar in flavor to fennel, licorice and star anise. It turns out there is a simple reason for this. They all have in common Anethole.

Anethole is a widely used flavoring substance which can be produced by deriving it from another compound. However, anethole is the common link between anise, star anise, fennel and licorice. That’s why they all taste, more or less, the same. Closely related to anethole is estragole (estragon is French for tarragon), which is an isomer. Yeah, what? An isomer is a compound with the same elements as another compound, but arranged in a different pattern.

Permit me a crude, but I hope illustrative example. 3 cooks are presented with the same ingredients: 2 eggs, half a cup each of onions, peppers and tomatoes. Each cook makes a different dish. Same ingredients differently arranged.

Phosphorus diagram 1
Arrangement 1 of atoms
Phosphorus diagram 2
Arrangement 2 of atoms

 

Real World Stuff

Continue reading “3 Ways Anise Makes You Happy”