Weekend Cooking; Treats.

Wow.  Two weeks flew by quickly.

And in that two weeks I've done some baking.  Just because.  Baking is good.  Healing.  A friend from work, my "egg man", gave me a whole bushel of apples.  Un-perfect, farm apples.  Beauties that my camera won't do justice.  We've sliced them and had them as snacks yet their numbers didn't diminish.

{Photo Source}

I remembered back to a recent Beth Fish Reads post about an apple cake that caught my eye.  Oh my. I made it last week and that cake was delicious.  The frosting-heavenly.  I'm waiting patiently for a new occasion to arise just so I can make it again.  Looking back at the post to link it I was reminded that it came from a King Arthur cookbook which makes perfect sense.  Get some apples.  Eat the apples because they are so good for you raw but then make the cake to reward yourself.

The next delicious treat I made is from Katie Workman's fantastic book, The Mom 100 Cookbook.  I needed  a quick treat to make for my 5th grade book club.  I searched through two or three books and happened upon this one on page 328 in the Bake Sale section.  The kids loved them.  Very rich chocolate taste without a lot of work. Perfect when you are making them at 9:00 at night.

Fudgy One-Pot Brownies
Makes 12 huge or 24 reasonably sized brownies

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, plus butter for greasing the pan
Nonstick cooking spray (I used coconut oil to smear around)
3 ozs unsweetened Dutch-processed cocoa powder
2 1/2 cups granulated sugar ( i know that IS a lot!)
1/2 tsp kosher or coarse salt
1 T. pure vanilla
3 large (farm) eggs
1 1/2 cup (unbleached KA) flour

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Generously butter a 13 x 9-in pan.

2. Place the butter and chocolate in a medium-sized saucepan over medium-low heat and let melt together, stirring until smooth.  Remove the saucepan from the heat and stir in the cocoa powder, sugar, and salt, then blend in the vanilla.  Beat in the eggs one at a time, stirring to mix quickly so they don't have a chance to cook at all before they are blended in. Blend in the flour.

3. Scrape the thick batter into the prepared baking pan and smooth the top with a spatula.  Bake until the edges just begin to pull away from the sides of the pan and a wooden skewer or toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes.

4. Let the brownies cool in the pan on a wire rack.  When completely cool, cut them into 12 or 24 squares.  (The side note says it is better to cut these the next day if possible.)

Brownies were so good I had to make a second batch for home and to share with the in-laws arriving this week.  I have to keep slapping my own hand from taking the crumbles.

This post is linked to Beth Fish Reads Weekend Cooking meme.  Stop over and have a look at the many other food-related posts.