NBM, Day 13: Orange Brownies

I love the chocolate-glazed, mint-frosted version of the Classic Brownies from Cook's Illustrated. Since I was really craving something with orange and chocolate (it's a winter thing, right?), I tweaked their recipe a bit to create a brownie that pushed that citrus button for me. I added orange zest and chunks of an orange-flavored Lindt bar to the brownie batter, orange zest to the frosting, and then more of the orange Lindt bar to the glaze. Totally hit the spot!

NBM, Day 9: Magic Cookie Bars

Day 9. I’ve wanted to try this version of Magic Cookie Bars from the New York Times for a while. The recipe is from the fantastic Samantha Seneviratne, and is a nice taming of what is typically a far-too-sweet sweet. She uses an actual crest, too — still graham crackers, but bolstered with an egg and leavening. The topping, too, is dialed back: bittersweet chocolate and unsweetened flaked coconut, plus pecans. And just one can of sweetened condensed milk! All in all, a great upgrade to a classic confection.

NBM, Day 2: Peanut Butter Fingers with Salty Milk Chocolate Glaze

For day 2 of National Baking Month, I plucked a recipe from the fun and inspirational Vintage Baker, which Jessie Sheehan published last year. I’d tried her Chocolate Molasses Crinkles during the holidays and had really wanted to try these chocolate-glazed peanut butter treats because, of course, you can never go wrong with a chocolate-peanut butter combo. The recipe directs to trim the edges off the cookie before cutting it into bars. Not sure if maybe I trimmed off too much, but no worries because the trimmings make for good snacking. The bars are delicate and delicious, and are especially nice with a sprinkling of flaky sea salt on the glaze.

Tuesdays with Dorie: Crispy-Topped Brown Sugar Bars

While I'm in arrears for two TWD projects (the grapefruit tart and the lemon madeleines -- hooray for the upcoming rewind week!), I did manage to make the Crispy-Topped Brown Sugar Bars.

The recipe is pretty straightforward. To start, I made the crispy topping. Since I had an open box of Cocoa Krispies, I used those instead of regular Rice Krispies (seriously, who's going to argue over an extra bit of chocolate?). No problems at all with that portion of the recipe. In fact, they were a lot of fun to make. And sample.

All in all, I had no problems with the sticky dough, but I was alarmed when I checked the oven after the base had been baking for about 18 minutes. There was the dough, bubbling away almost like caramel. Since the base was golden brown, I pulled it out of the oven a little early and let it cool down for a couple of minutes. I'd melted some bittersweet chocolate rather than try to have it melt on the warm cookie base, so having a hot-from-the-oven cookie base wasn't as much of a necessity for me. The thin layer of chocolate went on, then the caramelized Cocoa Krispies. All looked good.

I figured that I'd need to be careful slicing these bars, which I suspected might be pretty brittle. For as crisp as they turned out to be, they sliced relatively cleanly.

The downside to these bars? They are insanely good and can be consumed at an alarming rate. Even worse, I now know they are ridiculously easy to make. How will I save me from myself?