Peanut Butter Brownies

Brownies are just great... I love the smile on people's faces when I tell them that I brought along brownies. I made a batch this weekend for some friends from the English Seminar - it's a good thing most of the people there share my fondness for peanut butter... ;-) and since they have to listen to me raving about it all the time (because, as you know from this post, that's just what peanut butter addicts do), I thought I might as well bake them something with peanut butter in it.

Recipe:

100g dark chocolate
125g soft butter
250g sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract/1 sachet vanilla sugar
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
80g flour
2 tblsp cocoa powder
100g roasted and salted peanuts
50g chopped dark chocolate/chocolate chips
about 10 tsp peanut butter

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Line a brownie tin (about 18x23 cm) with parchment paper.

Break the chocolate into pieces and melt in a bowl over a hot water bath. Let cool slightly. Put butter in a large bowl and beat with the hand mixer until smooth and creamy. Add sugar and vanilla extract and beat until well combined. Slowly add eggs and chocolate and beat well. Sift flour and cocoa powder into this batter, mix well. Then add the peanuts and the chocolate chips. Fill the batter into your prepared tin. Spread the peanut butter onto the batter with a teaspoon and run a fork through this batter so that you get a bit of a marble effect.

Bake the brownies in the middle of the oven for about 25-30 minutes. Check whether they are done with a wooden skewer. Let the brownies cool down in the tin, then cut into pieces.

Ginger Chocolate Chip Pound Cake

I have a thing for ginger, also for glacé ginger, which I think adds the extra something to this cake. When I saw this recipe, I knew this must be my kind of cake. And it even exceeded my expectations it was so good! This cake immediately made it to my favourites-list. It's also delicious when it is still slightly warm... best eaten with some extra cream cheese... perfection...

Recipe:
(from here)

100g unsalted butter, melted
200g caster sugar
125g full-fat cream cheese
3 medium eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract/or vanilla sugar
50g ground almonds
1 tsp ground ginger
75g chopped glacé ginger
125g dark chocolate, chopped into small chunks
200g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder

Preheat oven to 180°C. Line the base and sides of a small, 17cm-long loaf tin or similar with nonstick baking paper, allowing the paper to pop up a few centimetres above the top of the tin.

Mix together the butter and caster sugar until smooth. While the butter mixture is still warm, beat in the cream cheese until any lumps vanish, then beat in the eggs one at a time, until light.

One by one, add the vanilla, almonds, ground and glacé ginger, beating well after each addition, then stir in the chocolate chips. Sift the flour and baking powder, then stir evenly though the cake mixture. Bake for 60-70 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the centre pulls out with only a few crumbs stuck to it.

Leave to cool for a few minutes, remove from the tin but leave in the paper, and place on a wire rack to cool.

Light Cheesecake with Redcurrants

As promised - as a contrast to the last post ;-) - here comes the cake I made two weeks ago as a dessert for two good friends of mine. It is fairly light and makes a really nice summer dessert - you don't even have to turn on the oven. I was very pleased with this cake. It looks so pretty with the redcurrants on top.

Recipe:
(from Saisonküche, Juni 2011)

100g petits beurres
50g butter
6 sheets gelatine
2 eggs
1 lemon
350g low fat curd cheese
60g sugar
0.5dl water
125g redcurrants

Line a 18cm springform pan with parchment paper. Put the petits beurres in a plastic bag and beat them with a rolling pin until they are crumbled. Melt the butter. Mix butter and crumbles and press this onto the bottom of the springform pan. Put in the refridgerator. Soak gelatine in cold water.

Separate the eggs. Grate the lemon zest. Mix the zest and the lemon juice with curd, sugar and egg yolks. Take the gelatine out of the water and squeeze it well. Then, in a small saucepan, heat the gelatine in the water until it dissolves. Mix a little of the curd batter with the gelatine. Then, mix this well with the whole curd batter. Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold into the curd batter. Pour your batter into the springform pan and spread the redcurrants onto this. Put in the refridgerator for at least 3 hours for the cake to get firm.

How to improve Cream Cheese Brownies...

Ok guys, here's the thing: today, I wanted to post the light and fruity cheesecake I made last weekend... (coming up next week, promise). However, what I'm going to present you now is a bit more decadent ;-) Such things happen spontaneously and before ten in the morning at my place - when I'm alone and no one can stop me from combining three of my favourite things: chocolate, cream cheese and peanut butter. Imagine the lovely smell of peanut butter and chocolate combined in my kitchen...

So, picture first and then comes the recipe...

Peanut Butter Cream Cheese Brownies
(adapted from: Myriam Zumbühl - Kochen mit Myriam)

125g dark chocolate
125g butter
2 eggs
200g sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract or one sachet of vanilla sugar
75g flour
1 pinch of salt

200g cream cheese (e.g. Philadelphia)
1 egg yolk
1 sachet vanilla sugar
3 heaped teaspoons of crunchy peanut butter

Preheat the oven to 220°C. Line a brownie tin (18x23cm) with parchment paper.

In a bowl, mix cream cheese, egg yolk, vanilla sugar and peanut butter.

Over low heat, melt butter and chocolate in a little pan and let cool a bit. Beat sugar and the eggs until pale and fluffy. Add vanilla sugar. Add the molten chocolate and mix well. Sieve in flour and salt and mix. Once the batter is smooth, pour into your prepared brownie tin.

Scatter cream cheese batter onto that with a spoon. With a fork, spread the batter a little and create swirls so that you get a marble effect.

Put into the oven and bake for about 20 - 25 minutes until the top is crispy and shiny but the inside is still moist. Let cool and then, cut into slices.