 | | | The "BRiC" Photo provided
| | | | | | It's a wonderful thing when your kids come to the rescue to save the day! Normally, when we travel, I have the food column prepared ahead of time; or at least the recipe has been tested and photos taken. But this time I was not quite as prepared as usual, and had no time to test the recipe I had in mind or take the photos. With a looming deadline I had been racking my brain on what to submit when an email arrived from my two sons' roommate, Shane Roland, introducing me to "The B.R.C." The recipe was a new dessert creation that he and my younger son Joel had been testing and perfecting, along with multiple photos of the entire process. It's just awesome having kids who love to cook!
They call this concoction The B.R.C., pronounced 'brick,' but standing for Brownie/Reese's/Cookie, and I truly hope it is not brick-like, but rather soft, chewy and delicious! Also, I've taken the liberty of renaming it The BRiC, because I prefer words to contain vowels.
The history of this dessert dates back to Shane's birthday in November, when we were visiting the kids in the Chicago area. I love to make birthday cakes, and asked Shane what kind of cake he would like. He responded that his favorite combination is chocolate and peanut butter, so Joel and I altered our traditional cocoa cake by adding peanut butter chips, chocolate chips and quartered Reese's Peanut Butter Cups to the cake batter. All of this was topped with a chocolate-cream cheese-peanut butter frosting. They gobbled it up and have been working on an everyday substitute that young 20-somethings could make in between basketball, school, jobs and studying. This meant taking some shortcuts like packaged brownie mix and ready-made cookie dough, of which mother does not normally approve. But, being in my needy condition, how could I complain?
So, what you see is exactly what they prepared, though Joel assured me that using homemade cookie and brownie dough would not hurt the flavor one bit! Having not prepared these myself, you are on your own this time, but the boys have been experimenting with this for a while now, and seem quite pleased with the results! They did say that the reason for baking them at a low temperature is so the cookie at the bottom does not get overdone while the brownie is getting done.
Good luck and bon appetit!
|
The BRiC (Brownie/Reese's/Cookie)
|
|
(Makes 8-10 in large-sized muffin tins)
INGREDIENTS
1 package brownie mix (the boys don't have a particular brand, but like either milk chocolate or "thick-fudgy" brownies)
1 package cookie dough (peanut butter or chocolate chunk), or your favorite homemade cookie dough
8-10 Reese's Peanut Butter Cups
1 jar caramel sauce (optional)
DIRECTIONS
Grease large sized muffin tins well. Prepare brownie mix and set aside.
Press two squares of store-bought cookie dough into the bottom of each muffin tin, forming the base layer. If you use homemade, this would probably be about two tablespoons of dough.
Place unwrapped peanut butter cup upside down, right on top of the cookie dough.
Drizzle 1/2 to 1 teaspoon of caramel sauce over peanut butter cup.
Spoon brownie batter over the first three ingredients in each cup, allowing the batter to come about 1/2 to 2/3 to the top of the muffin tins. Bake any excess brownie batter separately.
Bake at 300-325 degrees for approximately 25 to 30 minutes, or until brownies are done. (The boys say that you need to bake these at a fairly low temperature, so the cookie doesn't get overdone while the brownie is getting done.)
When done, turn out of muffin tins and serve with a scoop of your favorite ice cream.
|
|
Lamorinda Weekly, Moraga CA