TWD: Pumpkin Muffins

This Tuesday's recipe was chosen by Kelly over at Sounding My Barbaric Gulp!. I haven't participated in the last two recipes so I was due to bake and I was glad to see it was a seasonal recipe and one that I was looking forward to. I really enjoyed these muffins a lot. I had one for dessert tonight and the texture was really good and the pumpking flavor came through nicely. I ended up skipping the nuts, raisins, and sunflower seeds and just added chocolate chips. I have a lot of recipes in my reader that include pumpkin and chocolate but I've never tried it so I figured these muffins would be a good excuse to give it a go and the flavors actually go together really well.

I could definitely see myself making these again. Good choice Kelly! You can find the link for this recipe in Kelly's blog that I linked above.

TWD: Snickery Squares

This week the recipe chosen was creme brulee but you were allowed to sub an already completed recipe if you weren't comfortable with creme brulee. I would be more comfortable with creme brulee if I had a torch. I think all the fun of creme brulee is being able to torch something and since someone doesn't think I need a torch for the kitchen, I decided to make Snickery Squares.

These don't really taste like Snickers bars but the flavors are great together. I only have a picture of the top of the squares right now because they're still cooling. I tasted a corner out of the side and these were really good and I'm sure they'll be even better when they've firmed up.

To view the complete recipe, visit Erin's blog at Dinner and Dessert. She chose this recipe back in March and it was a good choice. There are a lot of past recipes that really looked good and the ones that are chosen for this coming October look amazing. I usually just bake every other week so that I'm not overloaded with sweets (or so that Casey's co-workers aren't overloaded with sweets), but I might have to break that this coming month.

TWD: Chocolate Chunkers

This was my first Tuesday's with Dorie and I'm actually posting this on a Wednesday since I was gone all day yesterday. I'll be posting these on a Tuesday from now on, which is the whole point of TWD. There is a recipe picked every week and you must bake 2 out of every 4 recipes. It's a pretty cool way for me to try to improve baking. I don't think I'm a bad baker, I just know how many more variables go into baking and it's a bit more temperamental than cooking dinner for example.

This week was Chocolate Chunkers and they were really good. I probably wouldn't have made them if I was picking out a recipe on my own (which is another reason I'm doing this), but they turned out really well. Just like with the rest of my baking, I gave these away. Casey's co-workers are looking fordward to my TWD and for the record the entire bag of cookies was gone by the end of the day.

Chocolate Chunkers
(Source: Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan)

1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into 3 pieces
6 ounces bittersweet chocolate, coursely chopped (I did 4 oz and then 2 of milk choc)
1 ounce unsweetened chocolate, coarsely chopped
2 large eggs, at room temperature
2/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup store-bought semi-sweet chocolate chunks
1 cup store-bought milk chocolate chunks
1 1/2 cup coarsely chopped nuts (I used pecans)
1 cup moist, plum raisins (I omitted these)

Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Spray baking sheets with Baker's Joy.

Sift together the flour, cocoa, salt and baking powder.

Set a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water. Add butter, bittersweet chocolate and unsweetened chocolate and heat, stirring occasionally, just until melted (chocolate should be smooth and shiny). Remove bowl from heat and set on counter to cool.

Mix eggs and sugar in a large bowl on medium-high speed for about 2 minutes, until pale and foamy. Beat in vanilla and scrape down bowl. Reduce mixer to low and add melted chocolate mixture and mix just until incorporated. Scrape down bowl and then on low speed add dry ingredients and mix just until dry ingredients disappear into the dough. Your dough should be thick and shiny. Scrape down bowl and mix in semi-sweet and milk chocolate chunks and raisins.

Drop dough by generous heaping tablespoonfuls onto baking sheets with about an inch between mounds of dough.

Bake cookies one sheet at a time for 10-12 minutes. The cookies will look dry but the interiors should be soft (mine were like gooey brownies on the inside, so good!). Using a spatula lift the cookies onto a cooling rack to cool to room temperature. My cookies were more mound like because I froze my dough. I always freeze cookie dough b/c I like for my cookies to be thicker and chewier as opposed to thinner. These were great!