Nutella Cheesecake Brownies

When I pulled these out this morning to photograph, I said, "I will not eat one. I will take pictures, put them back in the pan and go on with my morning."

Because sometimes I can justify eating the slices I cut out to photograph. Sopapilla Cheesecake Bars? It's got dough in it... it's like a biscuit! Orange Mango Bars? Fruit! There's fruit in it! Everyone eats fruit for breakfast!

But there is nothing good to say about eating a brownie at 8:13 AM. Except that.... it's delicious and I'm pretty sure my day's going to be slightly better because of it. In fact, I'm changing my tune.

I have lots of good things to say about eating a Nutella Cheesecake Brownie at 8:13 AM while simultaneously blogging and raving to Backstreet Boys' "Masquerade." You need it in your life.

Your ingredients: Devil's Food Cake Mix, eggs, butter, vanilla, cream cheese, powdered sugar, Nutella

First, mix together the cake mix, 1 egg, and melt one of those sticks of butter and throw it in there too. It'll look like this. Press that evenly into the bottom of your pan.

Next, beat together the cream cheese and nutella until it's creamy. Add the eggs, the rest of the butter melted, and vanilla.

Now, beat in the powdered sugar a little at a time until it's thoroughly mixed. It looks slightly more delicious.

Now just pour that on top of the pressed cake mix, and bake! It comes out looking like this and smelling like chocolate heaven.

Mmm, look at those delicious layers.

Nutella Cheesecake Brownies

From Lovin' From the Oven

Bottom Layer:

1 box Devil's Food Cake Mix

1 egg

1/2 cup butter, melted

Top Layer:

8 oz cream cheese, softened

1 cup Nutella

1/2 cup butter, melted

3 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla

1 16 oz. box powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 350°. Lightly grease a 9x13 pan.

In a large bowl, mix together the cake mix, 1 eggs, and butter. Press the mixture evenly into the bottom of the pan.

In an electric mixer, beat together the cream cheese and Nutella until creamy. Add in the eggs, vanilla, and melted butter and combine. Add in the powdered sugar a little bit at a time until the mixture is thoroughly combined. Pour the mixture on top of the cake layer and spread evenly.

Bake for 40-50 minutes, until it is set. It's supposed to be gooey, so don't overbake it.



Orange-Mango Bars

Ta-da! Something else new and different! It's fruity! Sure, it's still a bar, but it's a deliciously sweet and fruity bar. As you can probably tell from the photo, it's been raining here off and on for the last week or so, and I'm pretty tired of it.

So we needed something for desert this week that was sunshin-y!

Your ingredients: Flour, sugar, butter, eggs, oranges, and a mango- ingredient arrangement this week by The Husband, who was very proud of himself.

Mix together some flour, sugar, and butter until it looks dough-y and ready for being a crust. Then press it into the bottom of a foil-lined 9x13, and bake for 15-20 minutes, until it's golden brown.

Squeeze all 3 of your oranges out, then squeeze some mango juice into a bowl, add some more sugar, flour, and the eggs, until it looks like this.

Then pour it on top of the crust and bake some more! It's that easy! Don't worry, the middle will still be very jiggly when you pull it out of the oven- it will set as it cools. Yum, yum.

Orange-Mango Bars

Adapted from From Apples to Zucchini

Crust:

2 cups flour

1 cup butter, softened

1/2 cup sugar

Filling:

Fresh-squeezed juice from 3 orange, about 3/4 cup

Juice of 1 mango

4 eggs

1 1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup flour

Preheat oven to 350°. Line a 9x13 pan with foil and spray with cooking spray.

In an electric mixer on low speed, beat together the crust ingredients until they look like a soft dough. Press it evenly into the bottom of the pan and bake for 15-20 minutes, until golden brown.

Mix together the juices, eggs, remaining flour and sugar until thoroughly combined. Then pour the mixture over the crust and bake for another 22 minutes or so. The middle will still be very jiggly, but it will set as it cools. 



Peanut Butter Pretzel Tart

Sorry people, I got a little blog-lazy this week. I wanted to make something a little different this week. I feel like every week I'm shoving something cheesecake or in bar form down your throat.

So, voila! Something different. And it has peanut butter!

Except that when I wait to take the picture (because I'm lazy) this is all that's left of it.

Yeah, it's delicious.

Your ingredients: Peanut Butter, Pretzel sticks, butter, heavy cream, vanilla, cream cheese, brown sugar

So first, crush up your pretzels, then blend in the brown sugar, then mix it together with the melted butter.

Then press it into your tart pan and bake it. As you can see I didn't bake mine long enough, AS USUAL. So DO AS I SAY, NOT AS I DO. That's why my crust is all disintegrated in that picture up there.

While your crust is cooling, make your filling. Mix together your softened butter, peanut butter, and cream cheese. Then the brown sugar. 'Till it looks like this.

Then whip up your cream and vanilla (ignore that whisk, I was too lazy to clean out my bowl but it literally takes forever and a lot of muscle unless you use the mixer)

Then just fold those two together....

And spread it onto your crust! Refrigerate... and get tasy peanut butter goodness! Enjoy!

Peanut Butter Pretzel Tart

From Cake Duchess

2 cups broken pretzel sticks

1/2 cup brown sugar

6 tbsp. butter, melted and cooled

3 tbsp. butter, softened

4 oz. cream cheese, softened

1/2 cup creamy peanut butter

1 cup heavy cream, chilled

1 tsp. vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350°.

Finely crush your pretzels, mix in 1/4 cup of the brown sugar. In a bowl, mix together the crushed pretzels with the melted butter. Press into a tart pan then bake for about 18 minutes. Set out to cool on a rack.

In an electric mixer, mix together the cream cheese, peanut butter, and softened butter until creamy. Add in the remaining brown sugar and mix until combined. In a seperate bowl, beat the heavy cream and vanilla until it looks fluffly, like whipped cream. Fold the two mixtures together, then spread onto your crust.

Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 3 hours.



Chocolate Chip Pound Cake

So I bought this awesome new cookbook a couple of weeks ago, and I've been dying to try it out. Look, even the cover is awesome.

It's called Bake! Essential Techniques for Perfect Baking and it's by Nick Malgieri. There are step-by-step instructions and pictures for everything. That has been the most frusting part of learning to bake- the fact that most cookbooks and recipes assume a base of knowledge that I don't have. Not so with this cookbook!

So today, on a relaxing Saturday, I picked a recipe that I already had the ingredients for and went to town. And I am so glad that I did.

Because this, my friends, is delicious. So I decided to share the recipe with you and totally promote this book, because I love it and it is awesome.

Your ingredients: Flour, Butter, Eggs, Chocolate Chips, Baking Powder, Salt and Vanilla (oops again, that vanilla never wants to get in the picture)

First, combine your dry ingredients and mix them together in the mixer briefly on low, about 30 seconds. Then, add the butter, which should be very soft, and mix it on low until it's completely combined and looks like this.

Then, in a small bowl whisk together your eggs and vanilla. Make sure your eggs are room temperature, otherwise they'll make the batter seperate.

Add the egg mixture in 1/3 at a time, mixing for about 1 minute on medium speed in between each addition.

Fold in the chocolate chips with a rubber spatula, then just pour into your pan, smooth over the top, and bake!

Yum!

Chocolate Chip Pound Cake

From Bake! Essential Techniques for Perfect Baking

5 cups flour

2 sticks butter, very soft

1 tbsp. baking powder

2 tsp. vanilla

1 cup sugar

1/4 tsp. salt

1 cup chocolate chips

5 eggs, room temperature

Preheat the oven to 325°. Thouroughly grease a loaf pan.

In an electric mixer, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt and mix on low for 30 seconds. Add the butter and mix until thouroughly combined and no butter chunks remain.

In a small bowl, whisk together the eggs and vanilla. Add in 1/3 of the egg mixture, then beat on medium speed for 1 minute. Repeat until all of the eggs are mixed in and it is smooth.

Fold in the chocolate chips by hand, then pour the batter into the loaf pan and smooth the top. Bake for 60 minutes.



Nutella Cheesecake Cupcakes

Look, I have to tell you something. Last week I tried to make S'mores Cookies, and it was an epic, EPIC fail. It was... awful. It was the most disappointing and saddening thing that's ever happened to me in the kitchen. So this week, it was with great trepidation that I went back into the kitchen.

On an unrelated note, I just discovered Nutella. I know, right, I'm about 1,000 years late. But I think that when everybody was all, "I'm really into Nutella," I said I didn't like it because I wanted to be hip by being unhip. Because that's how I roll apparently. But guess what?

NUTELLA IS DELICIOUS. So I went back to every Nutella recipe I'd ever overlooked, and when I saw the word "cheesecake," I stopped. And here they are.

 

They are wonderful.

Your ingredients: Cream cheese, Sour cream, Butter, Graham Cracker crumbs, sugar, eggs, Nutella, condensed milk, and vanilla (oops).

Melt your butter, and mix it in with the graham cracker crumbs and sugar. Press about a spoonful into the bottom of your cupcake liners and bake for 5 minutes.

Then, mix together your cream cheese and condensed milk, add the eggs and vanilla, then the sour cream, until it's all smooth, like this.

Pour it on top of the crust. Add about 1/2 tablespoon of Nutella into each one, then swirl with a knife. Bake for 15-20 minutes, until the cheesecake is set and they look like....

this! Then just let them cool and refrigerate. Yummm.

Look at this guy! The reason I didn't post last week is because (of the cookie fail and) also I was at DragonCon! I bought him at one of the dealer booths because I fell in love with him on sight. His name is Mister Food, and I think his benevolent prescence is going to forestall any more baking disasters in my kitchen.

Nutella Cheesecake Cupcakes

Adapted from Tasty Kitchen

2 8 oz. packages of cream cheese, softened

1/2 cup sour cream

1 1/3 cup graham cracker crumbs

4 tbsp. sugar

4 tbsp. butter, melted

2 14 oz. cans sweetened condensed milk

2 tbsp. vanilla

2 eggs

1/2 cup Nutella

Preheat oven to 350°. Line a muffin pan with cupcake liners.

In a bowl, mix together with a fork the graham cracker crumbs, sugar, and melted butter. Press about a tablespoon of the mixture into the bottom of each of the cupcake liners. Bake for 5 minutes, then set aside to cool.

In an electric mixer, mix the cream cheese and condensed milk together until smooth. Add the eggs and vanilla, then the sour cream, and mix well. Pour the batter evenly into the cupcake liners. Dollop about 1/2 tablespoon of Nutella into each one and swirl with a fork.

Bake for 15-20 minutes, until the cheesecake filling doesn't jiggle too much. Cool in the muffin pan for 10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack and cool for another 10 mintues. Refrigerate at least 30 mintues before serving.