Culinary Genius

I'm not usually a fan of peppermint because it reminds me of toothpaste, but something about the Christmas season always gives me a yen for it.

Tonight, I took a chance and tried something new.  It worked out really very well, if I do say so myself.

First, I made brownies.  I used my go-to brownie recipe that never fails, even when I try.

What I did differently tonight is to spread half the batter into the pan before I unwrapped some mini York Peppermint Patties and threw them into the pan before coving them up with the rest of the batter.  I baked this for 25 minutes at 350, then added a few drops of peppermint extract to the chocolate glaze before topping them off.

Yum, is all I can say.  I think I've figured out what I'm going to make for this year's Christmas baking exchange.



Brownie Recipe:
1/2 cup butter
1 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 cup flour
1/4 tsp baking powder

• Preheat oven @350
• grease/flour your 8x8 pan
• Melt butter, and set aside to cool a little
• In a separate bowl, mix sugar, eggs and vanilla.  
• Add melted butter.
• Add flour, cocoa and baking powder
• Spread into pan - bake for 25-30 minutes

Note - Mix brownies by hand, unless you want them to have a cake-like texture.

Once the brownies come out of the oven, make a chocolate glaze with ~3 tbsp melted butter, 3 tbsp cocoa powder, a tbsp of honey, a tsp of vanilla, a cup of icing sugar and a few tbsp of milk.  Mix it all together and pour on top of still-warm brownies.  Let cool.

Another Note - I never measure for glazes, so these are estimates.


Last note for now - I skipped the vanilla entirely when I made the peppermint version of this.






Ok, last note, I promise - If you eat more than 1/16th of this recipe in a sitting, you're almost guaranteed to gain 10 pounds.    You might choose to take this risk, but if you do, please don't try to claim that I didn't warn you.