Do you make and send out cookies or other homemade or semi-homemade goodies for the Winter Holidays, Sisters and Brothers?
Normally we are focused on our annual holiday party and send home leftovers with folks but once more (third time) I've joined The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap for the holiday season, Sisters and Brothers. Today I want to share what that is, what I got in relationship to doing this, the recipe I tried out for my shipment of three dozen cookies, and what cookies I got back.
I didn't grow up eating CoCo Wheats, just didn't have them, didn't need them. But the company once sent me a very good coupon and they were on sale so I bought some. There was a brownie recipe on the back but when I tried it... YUCK! The texture wasn't good and frankly they were very dry.
I'm perhaps spoiled but I thought cookies used butter and brownies used oil?
So I went looking for another recipe. The one on the bag of candies I wanted to use in the recipe also used butter not oil and I wasn't pleased so I went looking some more. Almost every recipe I found used butter not oil! I found a recipe on TCHO and since we had some of their products to still test I thought I'd give it a shot -- I know that both the recipe creator and the brand tried the recipe so it should work as a basic foundation for my recipe, right? Then I saw a recipe on the back of the bag of Mint Truffle Hershey's Kisses I had and decided I wanted to try that one, too.
Here is my combination recipe inspired by both resources.
Mini Dark Chocolate Mint Truffle Brownies
Ingredients:
8 oz 99% Organic Unsweetened Baking Drops from TCHO
1 C Butter Flavored Crisco Stick
5 T Tap Water
1.5 C Zero Calorie Sugar Substitute (use the cup for cup kind)
2 tsp Peppermint Oil Extract
1 C Real Egg Substitute or Egg Whites
1 tsp salt
1 C White Whole Wheat All Purpose Flour
Directions:
1) Preheat oven to 350°F.
2) Melt the chocolate and the Crisco over low heat in a double boiler. The chocolate melted very well and the Crisco did fine though it took more stirring to fully mix it in.
3) Remove the chocolate mixture and pour into standing mixer bowl to cool down while you line your mini muffin tins with paper liners -- you'll need 48-50 of these.
4) Add the water, the sugar and the peppermint to the chocolate and blend well.
5) While it keeps blending add in the egg 1/4 cup at a time until fully incorporated. It will thicken up at this point a bit.
6) Stir in salt and flour scraping the sides of the bowl to thoroughly mix.
7) Spoon the batter into the liners filling almost to the top. These are brownies, they will not rise much at all.
8) Bake for 13 minutes. While you are doing this unwrap the kisses you will need 48-50 of them and set in a bowl away from the oven or other heat sources.
9) Remove the brownies and set the pans on wire racks to cool for five minutes.
10) While the brownies are still in the pans press on kiss into the top of each, making the brownie puff out a bit when you do so.
11) Carefully remove each brownie and its liner to set aside to continue to cool for about three hours and the kisses will melt a bit then reset.
ENJOY! Each of these had less than 77 calories when I made 50 of them or 80 if you make 48 of them using the same ingredients I did.
As a thank you for joining this cookie swap which benefited the Cookies for Kids' Cancer organization, OXO sent me three high-heat resistant Silicone spatulas as well.
Please note that I haven't yet tried the cookies you are about to see listed below. Some I I promptly froze these since I was in Las Vegas for a full week and didn't want them to go bad but others arrived while I was on the trip so they just sat unopened on my desk in my office.
The cookies I got from this year's swap were, in order of them arriving at my place:
Not far from us, just about an hour or so drive, came these Cranberry and White Chocolate Chip Cookies from Sara Croft at Solid Gold Eats. They look great and I hope they will rewarm up enough to share once I'm back from my trip.
Caramel-Stuffed Apple Cider Snickerdoodles from Coleen Hill at The Redhead Baker -- a title I can get behind because I'm a red head, too, or I was before it all started to go white in my late thirties. The plastic covering the front of the box broke in transport -- not Coleen's fault because she did carefully wrap them -- but the cookies appear to be very dried out now so we'll have to see how they are. Snickerdoodles are my hubby's favorite type of cookie by the way.
Two types of cookies came from Wendy Sondov at The Monday Box. First a set of Sparkling Lemon Cookies and secondly two Snow People made from 8 sugar cookies plus icing and marshmallow fondant. I unwrapped just one of the snowpeople for you all to see.
Remember to visit each of these blogger's sites to check out their recipes.
Leave a comment please and let us know what you think of my recipe. If you go and visit one of the other blogs please let them know you found them via The Chocolate Cult. Happy Chocolatey Baking and Treat Making!
Normally we are focused on our annual holiday party and send home leftovers with folks but once more (third time) I've joined The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap for the holiday season, Sisters and Brothers. Today I want to share what that is, what I got in relationship to doing this, the recipe I tried out for my shipment of three dozen cookies, and what cookies I got back.
I didn't grow up eating CoCo Wheats, just didn't have them, didn't need them. But the company once sent me a very good coupon and they were on sale so I bought some. There was a brownie recipe on the back but when I tried it... YUCK! The texture wasn't good and frankly they were very dry.
I'm perhaps spoiled but I thought cookies used butter and brownies used oil?
Here is my combination recipe inspired by both resources.
Mini Dark Chocolate Mint Truffle Brownies
8 oz 99% Organic Unsweetened Baking Drops from TCHO
1 C Butter Flavored Crisco Stick
5 T Tap Water
1.5 C Zero Calorie Sugar Substitute (use the cup for cup kind)
2 tsp Peppermint Oil Extract
1 C Real Egg Substitute or Egg Whites
1 tsp salt
1 C White Whole Wheat All Purpose Flour
Directions:
1) Preheat oven to 350°F.
3) Remove the chocolate mixture and pour into standing mixer bowl to cool down while you line your mini muffin tins with paper liners -- you'll need 48-50 of these.
4) Add the water, the sugar and the peppermint to the chocolate and blend well.
5) While it keeps blending add in the egg 1/4 cup at a time until fully incorporated. It will thicken up at this point a bit.
6) Stir in salt and flour scraping the sides of the bowl to thoroughly mix.
7) Spoon the batter into the liners filling almost to the top. These are brownies, they will not rise much at all.
9) Remove the brownies and set the pans on wire racks to cool for five minutes.
10) While the brownies are still in the pans press on kiss into the top of each, making the brownie puff out a bit when you do so.
11) Carefully remove each brownie and its liner to set aside to continue to cool for about three hours and the kisses will melt a bit then reset.
ENJOY! Each of these had less than 77 calories when I made 50 of them or 80 if you make 48 of them using the same ingredients I did.
As a thank you for joining this cookie swap which benefited the Cookies for Kids' Cancer organization, OXO sent me three high-heat resistant Silicone spatulas as well.
Please note that I haven't yet tried the cookies you are about to see listed below. Some I I promptly froze these since I was in Las Vegas for a full week and didn't want them to go bad but others arrived while I was on the trip so they just sat unopened on my desk in my office.
The cookies I got from this year's swap were, in order of them arriving at my place:
Remember to visit each of these blogger's sites to check out their recipes.
Leave a comment please and let us know what you think of my recipe. If you go and visit one of the other blogs please let them know you found them via The Chocolate Cult. Happy Chocolatey Baking and Treat Making!
Comments
p.s. I hope you received my package (your post makes it seem like perhaps you didn't.) I am going to check the tracking number and see what's up.
p.s. It was funny to read that you are/were a redhead. I don't know about Sarah, but that makes 3 redheads in this nut-free cookie exchange group!!
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