But now that things have settled down, it is time to dive into the thousands of recipes (literally) I have on my "have to try" wish list. The hard thing is choosing what delectable treat to do next.
Well, I had a little bit of help from my in-laws, since they requested brownies for their birthdays. The first birthday was my Step-Father-In-Law's, and he wanted chocolate brownies with frosting. After perusing my recipes, I found the Boardwalk Brownie recipe (from Disney's Boardwalk Bakery) and then I added a frosting that I got from the Pioneer Woman (she has a great cookbook and website).
Here are the ingredients for the brownies...
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. The original recipe states 330 degrees, which seems weird... so we are going with 350!
Start with 1 cup butter, 2 cups sugar, 1 cup light brown sugar, firmly packed, 1 1/8 cups cocoa powder and 1 cup light corn syrup (yep, there's a *little* bit of sugar in this recipe!)
Cream the ingredients together. I used my handy-dandy Kitchen Aid Mixer.
Then add 6 eggs, one at a time...
You can see what the dough looked like before the eggs, on the top of the mixing paddle...and the creamy goodness that appeared when I mixed in the eggs on the bottom of the paddle.
Scrape down the sides of the mixing bowl and add 6 Tablespoons canola oil. Mix.
Next, add 2 cups all-purpose flour. Mix until it is all incorporated.
Then line a 9x13 inch baking pan with parchment. This is something I have never done before and it made life so much easier! It was so easy to life the brownies out of the pan after they had cooled. Make sure that you leave yourself extra parchment on two sides, to use as handles when you need to pull the brownies out.
Pour in the chocolate-y goodness...
Spread it out as evenly as you can...
Then put the brownies in the oven for at least 35-40 minutes. Since everyone's oven is different, keep checking them every 5 minutes at the 35 minute mark. The original recipe says to bake for 15 minutes and that is just crazy talk. It must be a typo and they probably meant 45 minutes.
Ok, when the brownies are almost done, start preparing the frosting. Now, the Disney recipe didn't include a frosting, but frosting had been requested, so I wasn't going to disappoint! This is a recipe for an icing that went on a chocolate sheet cake, so I thought it would work.
First, melt 1 3/4 sticks of butter in a pan.
Then add 4 Tablespoons cocoa powder.
Stir and simmer, and then turn off the heat.
Add 6 Tablespoons milk (I used skim since that is what I had in the house) and 1 tsp vanilla.
Stir and then add just about 1 pound of powdered sugar.
Stir...
I decided to switch over to a whisk to take care of any lumps...
Then admire your baked brownies...
...and smooth the frosting over the warm brownies.
Add decorations (candies, nuts) if you like. I put some little Mickey Mouse sprinkles on top.
The frosting did wrinkle a bit as it cooled, but it didn't make it taste bad :)
Side view... after pulling the brownies out of the pan with the parchment (this helped sooo much!)
I should have let them cool some more before cutting them, but I was in a rush to bring them to the birthday party, so they don't look as pretty as they might have.
A piece of frosted Boardwalk Brownie...
As you can see, the texture of these brownies were very, very fudge-y and dense. In a good way.
So, that is my experience making the Boardwalk Brownies. They were delicious and were a hit at the birthday party. The great thing about both of these recipes, but especially the brownies, is that it really only requires pantry items. I always have cocoa in the house, and this is a great way to turn it into a decadant treat, when you absolutely have to have something chocolate-y!
When I visit Walt Disney World in November, I will have to buy one of the brownies from the Boardwalk Bakery and see how close my brownies are to the original.
