Cookie Dough Brownie Cake

Yet another hall birthday cake day has come and gone, but not without enough sugar and chocolate to solve our global energy crisis.                  

Happy Birthday to Liljuan and Daniel K., hope you enjoyed our T3 celebration!! :) 

Thanks to Kevin for supplying some of the ingredients and helping me hold this program every month :)

Thanks to Nate for baking with me; you're a natural and I look forward to cooking together more often! I hope you had as much fun as I did :)

Thanks to Aunt Maggie, for the icing bag and tips that made our beautiful writing possible <3

...and to the Maintenance Staff for cleaning up after us the next morning. 

Don't worry, there will be a workout at the end. Trust me, it's worth it. 

The Recipe: Layer 1- Brownies

• 4 oz unsweetened baking chocolate 
• 2 sticks butter
• 2 cups brown sugar 
• 4 eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup chocolate chips

The Process:  Layer 1- Brownies

1. Pre-heat the oven to 325 degrees Celsius
2. On low-medium heat, stirring frequently, melt the unsweetened baking chocolate and butter together in a small saucepan. 
3. Whisk the flour, brown sugar, eggs, and vanilla extract together in a large bowl. (Try to not cover the kitchen in flour while mixing ;) )
4. Once the chocolate and butter are completely melted and mixed, add this mix to the bowl, being careful not to burn yourself on the pot. 
5. Mix with a spoon. 
6. Mix in chocolate chips. 
7. Bake for about 23 minutes (depends on your oven, be sure to watch it carefully!)
8. Allow to cool completely (we stuck the pan in the freezer, because it was going to be there later anyway and this accelerated the cooling process). 

The Recipe: Layer 2- Eggless Cookie Dough (safe to eat without baking!)

• 1.5 sticks of butter
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 3 tbsp milk
• 1.5 tbsp vanilla extract
• 1.5 cups all-purpose flour
• 1.5 cups chocolate chips

The Process: Layer 2- Eggless Cookie Dough

1. Soften butter in the microwave. (We put the butter in ceramic containers to microwave for a few seconds. Be careful you don't over-nuke it to the point where it explodes in the microwave)
2. Mix all ingredients together with a hand mixer. 
3. Spread over completely cooled brownies (This will take some teamwork and diligence...this recipe only JUST covers the whole pan we used). 

The Recipe: Layer 3- Chocolate Chips

• Chocolate Chips

The Process: Layer 3- Chocolate Chips

1. Spread chocolate chips over cookie dough as desired. I made the admittedly wonderful mistake of not specifying an amount, so SOMEONE decided to go ahead and dump the rest of the bag of chocolate chips on top. He got lucky that I'm from a family that believes you can never have too much chocolate ;) 

The Recipe: Layer 4- Cream Cheese Icing

• 4 oz Neufatchel Cream Cheese
• 1/8 cup butter 
• 1/2 cup powdered sugar
• 1/4 tsp vanilla extract

The Process: Layer 4- Cream Cheese Icing

1. Mix the butter and cream cheese with a hand mixer. 
2. Mix in vanilla extract. 
3. Mix in powdered sugar. 
4. At first it will not look like icing. Give it a minute, increase the power of the mixer, and you'll see the transformation before your eyes. 
5. Put icing into the icing bag with desired tip. 
6. Write, draw, design, personalize!
7. Be sure to hold the icing tip slightly higher over the chocolate chips than usual, so that they will not come off the cake. 
8. Put cake in freezer until it's time to eat. 

Finally...share with amazing friends!!

The Calories: 

Baking Chocolate- 568 calories

Butter- 375 calories

Brown Sugar- 1724 calories

Eggs- 368 calories

Vanilla Extract- 45 calories

Flour- 1138 calories

Chocolate Chips- 3200 calories

Sugar- 580 calories

Milk- 103 calories

Cream Cheese- 388 calories

Powdered Sugar- 233 calories

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TOTAL:  8722 calories

Mind you, this is for an entire pan. Now it needs to be divided by about 60....which makes 145 calories per serving. Not bad at all when you share it :) To be honest, most of the icing was not used on the cake  either, so most of the cream cheese and powdered sugar should be removed from the total, but we can just know that we're even healthier than we thought, but work off enough calories to cover it anyway!

What went right: 

         Everything. This cake is flawlessly rich and filling. Everyone who tried it loved it, and the energy and happiness cloud on our hall afterward was quite encouraging! 

What went wrong: 

         Yeah, so, it's not a healthy cookie. Whatever. For 145 calories, this cake is about as rich as any chocolate fudge cake or cheesecake for 200 calories less. Like I said, worth it! 

What would I do next time: 

         The only thing I would do next time is be prettier with the icing. We didn't have time to make it as perfect as I wanted to, but it still looked great! Otherwise, there is nothing that should be changed with this recipe. 

          However, if I were making this for my little brother, I would make peanut butter cookies and melt the chocolate on top, so that it would be a Reese's cake. 

Overall, a fantastic cake, entirely worth the calories, and so much fun to make :) 

Now the workout...

So, we need to burn at least 145 calories. There are a few easy ways to do so: 

1. Run 1.5 miles at 10 minute pace. 
2. Walk for an hour at a moderate pace. 
3. Crunches for 15 minutes (45 calories), Squats for 15 minutes (70 calories), Kneeling Pushups for 15 minutes (60 calories). This should be done in intervals, but these are the totals necessary. 
4. 15 minutes yard work (75 calories) and 15 minutes of walking up and down stairs (100 calories). You'd be surprised how easy it is to spend 15 minutes doing stairs in college! 

But in all reality, as long as this is your only dessert for the day, there's really no need to worry! 

Fluffy Buttermilk Biscuits

Hello Biscuit Bakers!

This is a recipe that needs no disclaimer--even the buttermilk is from scratch. No Bisquik, no Pillsbury. However, I must credit pinterest once again for the link to the recipe.

It was also the starting point of tonight's dinner including biscuits, Penne Rigatti, and Sauteed Vegetables. Usually when crafting dinner for three, you start with the main dishes and find sides to compliment them. Tonight, I wanted to make buttermilk biscuits and asked what my family wanted to go with them. I must say, I was shocked that they wanted plain pasta (in the case of my brother) and vegetables (for the rest of my family. But the result was surprisingly harmonious...

The Recipe: Fluffy Buttermilk Biscuits

• 3 cups flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 Tablespoons sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 stick butter
• 3/4 cup milk
• 2 Tablespoons lemon juice
• 1 egg
• 1/3 cup water
• (The milk and lemon juice could be substituted with 3/4 cup buttermilk)

The Process:

• Preheat oven to 425 degrees. 
• Slice and dice your butter.
• Combine flour, salt, sugar, baking powder in a large bowl.
• Add the butter chunks, constantly mixing so that the butter becomes evenly dispersed.
• Hand mix until crumbly. It is very important to hand mix, or the biscuits will not be light and flaky.
• Mix in buttermilk, egg and just enough water to make a workable dough. 
• Mix the dough until it is just barely combined (I believe I may have overmixed slightly).
• Roll the dough onto a floured cutting board about 1 inch thick.
•  Cut with a 2 inch biscuit cutter, or a 2 inch round cup (any mothers will recognize the purple sippy cup I used...it was quite nice!). 
• My recipe made 16 biscuits, but it will make less if you roll the dough out thicker. 
• Place on a greased baking sheet (they were supposed to be touching one another and I failed to follow this...next time I will and let you know how it goes).
• Bake 11.5 minutes (the pinterest recipe says 12-15 minutes, but I think I should have stopped at 10 minutes) or until golden brown.

The calories: 

Flour: 1734 calores

Salt: 0 calories

Sugar: 9 calories

Milk: 65 calories

Lemon Juice: 6 calories

Baking Powder: 3 calories

Butter: 800 calories

Egg: 70 calories

Water: 0 calories

___________________
TOTAL per biscuit (for 16 biscuits): 168 calories

Okay, so this looks like a lot. But let's compare them to a few national restaurants....

One regular McDonald's biscuit: 260 calories
One Popeyes biscuit: 260 calories
One Dunkin Donuts biscuit: 280 calories
One Denny's buttermilk biscuit: 190 calories

So comparatively, it's not terrible! I don't feel as awful given that I ate five and swum 2000m today at a rather high pace, as well as biking four miles :)

What went right:
          They were great on the inside, and my family and I very much enjoyed them!

What went wrong:
          My little brother saw me baking and when he realized there was lemon in biscuits, he was able to taste it, so did not like them as much as he might have otherwise. Additionally, I believe I should have taken them out after 10 minutes, because a few of the biscuits were more cooked on the bottom than desired. I might even bake them for 9 minutes.

What I would do next time:
        Next time, I will change the bake time and bake them right next to one another so they can't spread out. It might also be fun to try them with mix-ins like bacon and cheese, or marinara and rosemary or basil.

Will I do this in college?:
        Yes, for sure! They are a great alternative to fast food biscuits, and do not take long to prepare.

Overall, I'm very glad I made these today, even though I'm not so happy I ate five...they were quite delicious!

We did not finish the biscuits, so I've frozen the last few to be reheated and enjoyed later...the recipe says this will be alright, so I'll let you know how they turn out!