As much as I bake with booze, you’d think I would be a raging alcoholic. AMIRITE? But, that’s not the case. I went through that phase (mostly in college, and the few years after I dropped out), and I got sick of the hangovers eventually. Honestly, I rarely drink at all now. I have a random glass of wine, or a delish wheaty beer. However, last Wednesday was New Years Eve/ Day. We didn’t do anything exciting for NYE. I just laid on the couch (and maaabye fell asleep) while he played NBA2014 (or whatever).
We opted to trade the NYE shenanigans for brunch Thursday morning. I made a pretty good Baked French Toast dish, some eggs, a little sausage… and MIMOSA’S!
I’ll be sharing the Baked French Toast recipe later… Right now, I’m going to tell you what I did with the leftover champagne.
I turned it into these Mimosa Blondies (click on it for the recipe)! I used the same recipe base as these Moscato Blondies with just a few tweeks.
the champagne flavor isn’t really noticeable. 😦 Maybe there was too much brown sugar. I think I might try out a different base next time. Or, possibly, switch out some of the brown sugar for regular granulated? Overall these tasted deliciously orangey. Not exactly the Mimosa flavor I was going for… but still good. I think they could use some frosting. Some powdered sugar, and a little champagne whisked together might be what these need to take them over the line to Mimosa-ville. HA! that was wicked corney. Sorry.
Sadly I forgot to take pictures. Use your imagination (or look at the pictures from the Moscato Blondies).
Happy Baking!
-Hey Waitress!!
So… I hate cooking/ baking in other peoples kitchens. Is that weird? Maybe it is. I don’t know. But I seriously hate not knowing where anything is… and it’s even worse when I’m in another town/ state. Then I have to go shopping and I don’t know where anything is in the freaking store! Aaaarg!
These brownies where a delish exercise in what else could possible go (kind of) wrong.
But I should start from the beginning. We’re visiting Hubs’ family in VA for Christmas and I offered to bake dessert. I don’t know how to say this w/o sounding like a jerk… but his dad doesn’t exactly have a great kitchen set up. It’s kind of wack… It was so bad I had to go buy most of the ingredients (see first paragraph). and then I forgot the danged FLOUR! Lucky for me, Hubs’ Bro lives right next door and his wife was gracious enough to hand over a bag of flour.
Dad doesn’t own a stand mixer. He has a hand mixer. From the 80’s. I now realize how much I love my Kitchen Aid, and I will never take her for granted again. EVER.
But balancing all that out I had helper this time, my SIL gave me a hand in the kitchen, measuring and finding all the things I needed. It was nice to have family in the kitchen helping out.
This recipe was adapted from Tuesday Night Boyfriend. Her blog is adorable and delish!
Finally… we get these delish looking brownies into the oven. I set the time for 25minutes and walk away. After 25 they’re not done. NBD, they’re supposed to take 35. Put the timer on for 10 more… still not done. 10 more… not yet. 10 more… f*ck it! I took them out anyways and went over to Bro’s house for some booze. Bro’s wife listened to me whine for a few minutes, and then offered to let me try finishing them in her oven. So sweet. We preheated and popped that (still delish looking, but undone pan) in her oven for 15 minutes. BAM! BAKED!
You might be thinking “WTF? Was the oven broken? Did you get the bake time wrong?”
What you should be asking is… “Did you accidentally turn the oven off after you checked them the first time?”
The answer to that would be… Yes. I’m pretty sure I accidentally turned the oven off and didn’t realize it. (hashtag)BakingFail. I hate baking in other peoples kitchen and I guess I was probably a little flustered. I really wanted everyone to love these.
And they did come out great. The only problem is that they’re not SUPER chocolately. Other than that I would change 2 things. The first is I wouldn’t cut up the fun sized Snickers. The second is, I’d chop up a king-sized Snicker’s bar and sprinkle it on top of the brownies when they first come out of the oven (maybe with some chocolate chips)!
Happy Baking! Hope you & yours had a Merry Christmas!
-Hey Waitress!!
Check out the recipe for these Red Velvet Snickers Brownies!
Last week I made the original version of these bars from Mom on Time Out. And I had a couple, very minor, complaints.
After cutting them up and putting them in the fridge, the oatey texture wasn’t even noticeable and the caramel amount was JUUUUUUUST right, as long as you ate the bars cold. What I’m telling you is that they came out even better than I thought. Winning.
Even though I liked the original version of these bars I couldn’t stop thinking about how awesome this caramel filling would be with peanut butter cookies! So… of course I had to try it.I used my standard peanut butter cookie recipe, but cut it in half. I used the same filling from the original recipe. I thought these bars really needed a little bit of color, so that’s where the mini M&M’s come in. These came out a little greasy, but I think that’s because I sprayed the edges with cooking spray to keep the caramel from burning to the pan… I cooled them on the counter (in the pan), then cooled them in the fridge (still in the pan) before I cut them into the bars.
Overall these got a thumbs up, but I think the original recipe was better. I think I need to use a chewier PB cookie recipe.
Check out my version of PB Caramel Cookie Bars!
Happy Baking!!
-Hey Waitess
Sunday Bakery this week is these Chocolate Chip Caramel Cookie Bars from Mom On Timeout. They are AAAAAH-MAAAAAAA-ZING. Seriously… the goeyness from the caramel, all those chocolate chips… so awesome.
I didn’t post a recipe because I didn’t adapt it enough. The only thing I changed was the chocolate chips. I used 1 cup of dark chocolate chips, and 1 cup of peanut butter chips. I also sprinkled about a half cup of each on top of the caramel after I poured it on top of the cookie dough.
There’s 2 things that I’m planning on doing differently when I make these again.
First- I’m changing the cookie dough recipe. I had a little issue with the amount of oats. Personally, I’d like there to be more, OR none at all. There wasn’t quite enough to make the cookies oatmealy, but there was enough to make the cookie texture a little, um, different. I’m planning on making these with my favorite peanut butter cookie dough OR my favorite oatmeal cookie dough.
Second- I’m only making half the amount of caramel sauce. it’s sooo rich (and delicious) I felt like the cookie part of the bar got lost. And no cookie dough deserves to get lost.
No matter what… I’d suggest you try these out, and as soon as I bake my version it will def be posted!
I actually baked these bars yesterday because I though I had a lot of “grown-up” (AKA BORING) stuff to do today. Turns out… I don’t. the only thing I HAD to do was go for a run. Usually I run at the gym on the weekends… These are a few of the reasons why.
There’s so much traffic on Saturday & Sunday. And if you run on the street/ sidewalk, you probably know how annoying it is to have to constantly stop and wait for a car to go by. I had a fit today trying to avoid any of the main roads, my route looks like a 3 year old drew it! Basically, cross streets suck and don’t you people want to sleep in on the weekend?!
Then in the spring/ summer/ fall there’s the yard sales. Seriously people, if you see me huffing along the least you could do is scooch (scootch) your cheap ass over a little so there’s room for both of us on the sidewalk! I’d rather not get hit by another (cheap) guy who is cutting across a lane of traffic so he can get that stupid rooster clock they’re selling for a dollar.
And finally… it seems like there are way more dogs out on the weekends. I love dogs, and (so far) I’ve never been attacked by a dog. But dogs… they don’t like runners. Maybe its their chase instinct? but whatever it is… UGH. the worst is when it’s close and barking but you can’t see it. it’s like “IS THIS going to be the dog that comes out of nowhere and mauls me”?! The other thing that drives me crazy is dogs that are off-leash. I got chased by a tail-wagging, tennis ball weilding labradoodle today. After I stopped and accepted the slobbery tennis ball deposited at my feet his owner says “He just wants to run with you”. Well, Lady, I might not LIKE dogs. And I might not be nice enough to stop, and your dog could have run into traffic… Fortunately for me that dog was well behaved. The point is- if you HAVE to let you dog off it’s leash in an unfenced area please call it back to you, or exert some sort of control over it!
Ooops. That got a little more angry than I intended. I think I need to go calm down and eat a gooey caramel cookie bar.
Happy Sunday!
-Hey Waitress!!
Unremarkable 