Scream Cheese Swirl Brownies

OoooOoooOooooOooooOooooo!!

That was my lame interpretation of a ghost, or something spooky anyway.

Friends, we are SO close to Halloween!

In honor of one of my favorite holidays (Thanksgiving is still the favorite: it is, after all, focused on food) I am sharing with you some wonderfully spooky sweet treats you can whip up to share with your ghosts and goblins, your fiends and friends.

Today we shall start with a super simple recipe for Cream Cheese Swirl Brownies. Seriously, these are so easy I am thinking about adapting it for every color scheme I could ever need in my life. Valentine's swirl brownies, Christmas Swirl Brownies...Because who ever says no to a brownie??

No one.

At least no one I know. College students aren't typically known for being picky eaters. Free food equals friends for life.

But back to brownies!

I've included a couple of step-by-step pictures to help you in case you get lost, but the wonderful thing about this recipe is that it is so forgiving. The brownie recipe is one-bowl-wonderful and as long as you swirl your knife randomly through the brownie batter and cream cheese, you're bound to end up with a beautiful marble effect.

See? Nothing to it but to do it.

Mmmm...spooky and scrumptious.

I'll be back at the beginning of next week with a recipe that is slightly more involved, but will result in some adorably festive candy corn cookies.

See you then!

P.S. This last photo is from Instagram :O Finally getting the hang of it! 

Scream Cheese Swirl Brownies

Via Baked Perfection

1/2 cup butter, melted
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup cocoa powder
pinch of salt
1 tbsp warm water
1 tsp vinegar
2 egg, beaten
3/4 cup flour

8 oz cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup sugar
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla
orange food coloring (red and yellow)

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and butter a 9x9 baking pan.
2. In a large bowl whisk (one by one) butter, sugar, cocoa powder, egg, and vinegar together, mixing well after each addition.
3. Gently stir in baking soda and flour until just combined. Pour all but 1/4 cup brownie batter into prepared pan.
4. In a medium bowl beat cream cheese and sugar together until light and fluffy. Beat in egg and vanilla, then add food coloring until desired shade is reached.
5. Gently pour cream cheese mixture over brownie batter in pan, covering the entire brownie layer. Dollop the remaining 1/4 cup of brownie batter randomly over the top of the cream cheese mixture.
6. Gently pull a knife or spatula through the layers, swirling to create a marbled effect.
7. Bake at 375 for 30 minutes. Let cool completely before cutting and serving.

Strawberry Blondies

Friends,
I write to you in a slightly disappointed frame of mind today. Sadly, this is one of the posts where things did not going according to plan, and I feel like renaming the blog "On Soggy Mountain" or "On Mushy Mountain" as I bow my head in shame.

Sigh. I was so in love with the Twix Brownies earlier this week, I thought I'd attempt a blondie as a nice point of comparison between bar cookies. I also just wanted to eat an entire batch of these Strawberry Blondies from Love&Olive Oil (which I will now not be able to do. Grr.). It started out great; white chocolate, butter, eggs, strawberries, flour, pretty simple, or so I thought. Into the oven it went. Golden brown on the exterior, the knife came out clean, and out of the oven they came....

only to my sad realization that the underneath the enticing exterior lay a mushy, soggy, disappointing interior. Maybe it's a sign that I should ease up on the sweets (hah, right) but soggy or not, I could always use the extra photography practice.

I managed to grab a few decent shots, and I love this one with the new baby cupcake stand. Can you believe it was only $3? Now that's my kind of pricing for food props. It's still taking me awhile to learn all my angles, and I've started this new pinboard on Pinterest with food photography I aspire to/take inspiration from when I am attempting to photgraphy my not so splendid brownies.

I'll include the recipe here with the suggestion that lowering the oven temp to 325 (as opposed to 350) and increasing the cooking time may help you avoid a mushy mess of blondies. I'm off to find a recipe that will soothe (and feed) my fractured ego.

But as always, Happy Baking!

Strawberry Blondies Slightly Adapted Via Love&OliveOil

5 oz white chocolate, chopped
1/3 butter, cut into chunks
2/3 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup flour
1 cup strawberries, sliced

1. Preheat oven to 325 and line one 8x8 pan with aluminum foil and spray foil with cooking spray.
2. In microwave safe bowl, heat butter and white chocolate in 15 second increments, stirring chocolate and butter in between microwaving until melted. Stir in sugar.
3. Whisk in eggs and vanilla. Stir in flour, salt, and baking powder until just combined, then fold in strawberries.
4. Pour into prepared pan and bake at 325 for 40-45 minutes, or until set and toothpick comes clean out of the center.
5. Let cool completely before slicing into bars to serve.

Twix Brownies

Hello friends!

So now that I am back in Florida and pretty much have the whole kitchen to myself, I was almost at a loss as to what to bake for you all for this week's post. Thankfully, Jamie over at MyBakingAddiction came to my rescue in the form of these Twix Brownies. After seeing this recipe (and inadvertently drooling over my laptop) I checked on my Recipe Index to see how many brownies I had listed there. It's quite a sad showing. Yes the Cookie Dough Topped Brownies were a huge hit, but I haven't been giving brownies their due here On Sugar Mountain and I mean to change that. Why the sudden change of heart you may ask?

Well to be truthful I've never been a huge brownie fan. Not that I dislike them, but my longstanding love affair with muffins and just plain old craving for cookies has kept me from realizing the truth...

Brownies are fabulous.

Brownies with candy bar pieces inside of them are out-of-this-world. Really the only reason I did not just at every single one of these brownies is that they need more Twix: a whole layer of side-to-side Twix pieces is in order next time I bake these brownies.

I'll also let you in on a little secret: I have been slacking. Yes, shocking I know, but many a time have I gazed at a brownie recipe, seen that it needed un-sweetened chocolate, and (cringe) used chocolate chips in their place.

What was I thinking? That it was a money-saving, easy substitution, but friends, the unsweetened chocolate is key to establishing a deep, rich chocolate flavor in brownies. I apologize to all brownie lovers; I knew not what I did and I am sorry.

Needless to say you must make these brownies; even if you aren't partial to Twix (though I do not know how such a thought is possible) you can easily substitute Reese's Pieces, Snickers, or any candy that suits your fancy.

Oh, and before I go, did you happen to notice my adorable little milk bottle? Here's another secret for you that I'm sure you'll love: don't spend the money ordering glass milk bottles online. The Starbucks mini Frappuccino bottles, when the plastic wrapper is ripped off, look just like them and you get an excuse to indulge in a deliciously sweet coffee drink!

Happy Baking!


Twix Brownies Via MyBakingAddiction

3/4 cup butter, cut into 1 tbsp cubes
4 oz chopped unsweetened chocolate
1 1/4 cups sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp salt
3 eggs
1 cup flour

16 fun-size Twix Bars, chopped into bite size chunks

1. Preheat oven to 350 and line one 8x8 pan with aluminum foil and spray with cooking spray.
2. Put butter and chocolate in microwave safe bowl and microwave on 20 second increments until butter completly melts. Then stir until chocolate melts.
3. Whisk in sugar, vanilla, salt, and then eggs until fully incorporated.
4. Slowly stir in flour, mixing until just combined.
5. Pour half of batter into prepared pan, then sprinkle Twix all over the brownies. Cover with remaining brownie batter and then bake at 350 for 30-35 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Let cool before cutting into bars.

Cookie Dough Topped Brownies

Hello all,

I am positively giddy with excitement as I right this post. Would you like to know why?

Drumroll...

I made it into FoodBuzz's Top9 today with my Birthday Cake Fudge!

Because of this honor, for the first time ever, I had over 1000 hits today on the blog. It has made my day and I just want to thank each and every person that voted me into the Top9.

If I could, I'd thank you all with a batch of these Cookie Dough Topped Brownies!

Alas, I could never make that many brownies in so short a time, so I will have to be satisfied with sharing the recipe with you all and letting you know that there are, in fact, my new favorite brownies. End of story.

Seriously, who ever thought of egg-less cookie dough is a genius. I now want to use it in every cake, cupcake, brownie and sweet treat that comes out of my kitchen. I even saw a recipe for cookie dough stuffed whoopie pies - which I will let you all know right now I'm so going to test out ASAP.

It is a bit on the sweet side, but I promise you one bite will not be enough. Once you start, it is a sweet slippery slope into cookie-dough-brownie bliss.

Speaking of bliss, between these brownies and making Top9 I am spent! I hope you test these brownies out for yourselves and share them (or not) with your friends. I'm off to make some delicious lemon loaves for Mother's Day this weekend, but I'll be sure to share the sweet success with you all on Monday!

Happy Baking!

Cookie Dough Topped Brownies Via RecipeGirl


for the brownies:
1 cup melted, salted butter
4 oz chopped unsweetened chocolate
2 cups packed brown sugar
4 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
1 cup flour
1/2 cup chocolate chips

for the cookie dough:
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
1 cup salted butter, room temp
1/4 cup milk
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1 3/4 cup plus 2 tbsp flour
2 cups chocolate chips (mini if you have them)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease a 9x13 pan with cooking spray
2. Melt chocolate in a microwave-safe bowl in 30 second intervals until smooth. Let cool slightly.
3. Whisk together melted butter and brown sugar, then whisk in the eggs and vanilla. Slowly stir in flour, mixing until just combined. Fold in chocolate chips.
4. Spread brownie batter into prepared pan and bake at 350 for 22-25 minutes, or until just set in the center. Let cool completely.

5. Meanwhile, make the cookie dough. Use a hand/stand mixer to beat together butter and both sugars, then beat in milk, vanilla and flour. Stir in chocolate chips.

6. Press cookie dough over top of cooled brownies. Stick in fridge for a few hours to set up, then cut into squares and serve!

Nutella Brownies

Hello there again,

So I have to admit I am a bit late to the Nutella bandwagon. I had done a home-stay in France when I was 13 (back when Nutella really wasn't known in the US) and I just couldn't get my mind around the idea of chocolate frosting for breakfast, because that's what it is.

I know I know - why argue if you're being offered chocolatey goodness for breakfast by a beautiful, smiling Frenchwoman? This is coming from the kid who only ate (and still eats) plain cheerios for breakfast.

Well, I learned my lesson. Now Nutella is everywhere - in grocery stores and all over the blogosphere, and when my boyfriend so sweetly picked me up a "Nutella on the Go", how could I say no?

Friends, I see my error (I was only 13) and I repent. Nutella is fabulous, and I am going to dedicate two back-to-back posts to it and it's wonderful complement to my favorite sweets.

So for today - what better way to kick off the morning than with Nutella Brownies! I got up early to whip these up...and according to one of our friends who slept over the night before, "it was like waking up to heaven".

Can't go wrong with that idea.

It was a bit of a workout to whip each egg in by hand (although maybe it's a sign that I should exercise instead of baking so much...nah) but it was completely worth it.

These are like heaven - fudgy, dense, moist, and in the midst of all the chocolate that faint hint of hazelnuts that I have learned to love

BUT be prepared...the heavenly scent can attract chocolovers everywhere, so it might be a good idea to make more than one batch.

Happy Baking!

Nutella Brownies Via That'sSoYummy

1 cup flour
3/4 cup cocoa powder
2 cups sugar
1 cup butter
2 tsp vanilla
4 eggs
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp salt
1 cup Nutella (heated in microwave for about 45 seconds)
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350 and line a square baking pan with parchment paper/foil
2. Combine flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl.
3. In a separate bowl, melt butter and then whisk in sugar and vanilla. Let cool before beating in each egg, one at a time, until fully incorporated.
4. Stir flour mixture into egg mixture until fully combined. Stir in melted nutella. Fold in chocolate chips.
5. Pour into prepared pan and bake at 350 for 30-40 minutes (it's done when you shake the pan slightly it does not jiggle)
6. Let cool completely