The Other Woman Cooks

Too busy to bake? Think again.  These little gems will rock your taste buds. Go ahead, volunteer to donate a bake sale item; bring a treat for your book club; make the best picnic brownies ever; or just be the coolest mom in the neighborhood. All it takes is three ingredients and 25 minutes. That's it. Done. Today was World Nutella Day.  NUTELLA BROWNIE BITES 1 small jar (1 cup) Nutella  10 tablespoons flour 2 eggs.  Mix it up and divide batter evenly into 10 lined muffin cups. Bake at 350 for 20-22 minutes. Chopped hazelnuts baked on top optional.  Absolutely fabulous.

Ever wonder where and by whom the first brownie was baked? It's a good question on National Milk Chocolate Day, which happens to be today! Culinary historians have traced the first “brownie” cake recipe to Fanny Farmer in The Boston Cooking School Cook Book circa 1906.  According to The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America , the recipe is similar an earlier Fanny Farmer chocolate cookie recipe, but with less flour and baked in a “7-inch square pan.”  The next adaptation came along a year later when another Bostonian named Maria Willet Howard added an extra egg and an extra square of chocolate to the Boston Cooking-School recipe and called it Lowney’s Brownies. But we all know there's no such thing as too many brownie recipes. For her next batch, Maria added yet another square of chocolate and named the recipe Bangor Brownies. Hence came the falsehood that brownies were invented by a housewife in Bangor, Maine.  Not so. Just like the American Revolution a...

Courtesy of the Williams- Sonoma kitchen, right off the back of a box holding a Bouchon Silicone Baking Mold for little cakes that look like wine corks. The French word for cork is bouchon . My JP saw a picture of delectable little chocolate cakes dusted with powdered sugar and couldn't resist. The baking mold, recipe included, landed under the Christmas tree with a card that said To Mom with love. I finally broke open the box and freed up the mold for first use last night using the recipe exactly as called for. Well, almost exactly. I substituted a whole Lindt 3.5 ounce Chili Chocolate bar for the 3 ounces of bittersweet chocolate -- quite sure that any good dark chocolate would do and I was correct. Believe me when I tell you that if you love deep, rich chocolate taste, you'll be hooked on chocolate corks. CHOCOLATE CORKS 5 tablespoons unsalted butter 3 ounces bittersweet chocolate, broken into pieces 1/3 cup all purpose flour 3 tablespoons cocoa powder 1/2 teaspoon ba...

... how much snow there will be. That's what my friend, roommate and fellow Democratic National Committee member said. We've been watching out the window, waiting for the blizzard to arrive. Southwest Air cancelled our flights home. Sure enough it's snowing out there and we're expected to be stuck in Washington, DC until Sunday. But no white out yet. Before I left home, I baked up a batch of fudge brownies with the hope there would be one left for me upon my return. Fat chance! I LOVE BROWNIES BROWNIES 6 ounces good-quality bittersweet chocolate, chopped 2 ounces unsweetened chocolate, chopped ¾ cup unsalted butter 1 cup sugar ½ cup brown sugar 2 teaspoons vanilla 4 large eggs Dash of salt 1 cup all-purpose flour 1 cup semisweet chocolate chunks ½ cup chopped nuts Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a metal bowl set over a pan of barely simmering water melt the bittersweet chocolate and the unsweetened chocolate with the butter, stirring until the mixture is smooth, remov...