Coconut Swirl Brownies

I made these Coconut Swirl Brownies (page 274) for Shabbat dinner when my brother-in-law and his family were visiting. I wanted something easy, kid-friendly and quick - and this recipe was all of those, as well as delicious!

I happened to have had a can of sweetened condensed milk stashed away in the pantry, which was the only "unusual" ingredient that I don't typically stock. Also, the batter is meant to be spread into an 8" x 8" square baking pan, and I discovered that I don't own one of these staple items! Instead of making crispy brownies in my 9" x 13" pan, I chose to use a 9" round pie pan instead. It worked just fine, and I cut the brownies into triangular wedges.

These brownies were included in the "rich and dense" section of Martha's cookbook, and rightly so. They were very rich, but not terribly dense. They were on the cakier side of brownies.

Below is a picture of my brother-in-law devouring this yummy dessert!

Peanut Butter Whoopie Pies

Nothing is on the DVR, so that means it's time to make cookies. Tonight I picked out Peanut Butter Whoopie Pies (page 207), just because the name makes me giggle.

This is a HUGE recipe ... the yield says 3 dozen, and it makes at least that. Since they are sandwich cookies, that means 6 dozen cookies - wow. The recipe calls for buttermilk, which I don't keep in the house. A while ago, I picked up Saco Cultured Buttermilk Blend, for recipes just like this one. It's a shelf stable powder that you mix with water to substitute for buttermilk. You add the water with the wet ingredients and the powder with the dry. When the water is added to the wet ingredients, the batter becomes somewhat sloshy and it does not incorporate the same way buttermilk would; however, once you add the dry ingredients, the batter mixes together just fine. The taste was unaffected by using a buttermilk substitute.

I did use natural peanut butter, as called for in the filling recipe. I despise natural peanut butter because I think it's totally gross and don't usually keep it in the house - and I certainly never eat it. We did have a jar of it, though, from our weekly farmer's market bag, so even though it was crunchy, I used it for the filling. What could possibly be gross when it's mixed with powdered sugar and butter?

The cookies were cakey and light and not too sweet, perfect when paired with the creamy, sweet peanut butter filling. These cookies would be great for a child's birthday party.

Carrot Cake Cookies

I decided to tackle this recipe, Carrot Cake Cookies (page 202), after our weekly market bag came back FULL of carrots. These cookies are essentially two tiny carrot cakes sandwiching cream cheese frosting. The recipe online is a smaller-yield version of the one in the cookbook, which made about 3 dozen cookies (before they were sandwiches).

These cookies were very easy to prepare, with no unusual ingredients. I just grated the carrots in the food processor, so they weren't as finely grated as Martha suggested, but they worked just fine. As per usual, I also omitted the raisins since raisins are not popular in our house. While the cookie dough was chilling, I whipped up the frosting in no time flat.

These cookies are decadent ... very filling, and super delicious. A wonderful treat.