"baked" news and stories

Whether they're packed with walnuts, shaped like ghosts and goblins or infused with bacon and bourbon, brownies rarely fail to satisfy. Maybe it's the fact that their texture is somewhere between cake and cookie (when done properly), or just that they're always packed full of chocolate. Even a simple brownie -- with no bells, whistles or bourbon -- can be absolute perfection. Just ask Flickr user little miss amanda, who made these using a recipe from the New York City bakery Baked.

On her blog, Slow Like Honey, Amanda admits that while they're actually her second favorite brownies, they'll still "render you senseless" and are -- like any brownies worth their weight in chocolate should be -- better the next day.

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Eggs are one of the wonderful, edible creations that we can feast on. Sometimes they carefully nestle golden bulbs of creamy yolks waiting to explode. Other times, they're a wonderfully yellow folder squeezing together our favorite meats, cheeses, and vegetables. However, while we lovingly whip up many classic egg incarnations -- fried, poached, scrambled -- we very rarely take on the baked egg.

It just doesn't make sense. Even when we're presented with crisp, pita-wrapped options, the baked egg falls into the forgotten drawer of gourmet meals that might come out on special occasions, but rarely gets mentioned as a normal, eggilicious option.

Not anymore, or at least I hope. You can make a delicious baked egg, whether you want it moist and overflowing with yolk, or firm and Jello-jiggly, with absolutely minimal effort and cleanup. Read on...

If you are lucky enough to live in one of the five boroughs of New York City, then you are within tasting distance for these delicious-looking treats from Baked in Red Hook, Brooklyn. For the rest of us, at least there's a picture at which to gaze. There's also a blog entry that goes along with this image, all about how painfully difficult (because there's just so much to eat and photograph) it is to be a food blogger. Vanessa, I feel your pain!

Few and far between are the people who don't like blondies at all. They have the thick chewiness that is usually associated with brownies, but are more substantial and often more satisfying. This batch of Toffee Crunch Blondies, baked by The Canadian Baker, looks to be even more satisfying than the average blondie because it incorporated chopped up Skor Bars into the blondie batter. The Skor bars melt into the blondies as they bake, creating little pockets of buttery toffee/caramel and chocolate, a nice change from the plain chocolate chips that are so often used in blondies. Alternatives to Skor include Daim, which you can usually find at Ikea stores or other importers and can be used in cakes and cookies, as well as in blondies, and chopped up Heath bars, which will add a similar flavor. The recipe for these blondies can be found here.

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I am not a big fan of creamy things, including cream-based soups and cream-based drinks and desserts. That means that while I like the flavor of Bailey's, I just can't drink very much of it at one time. When I got a bottle of the new Bailey's with a hint of Caramel Irish Cream Liqueur, I loved the flavor (more than Jonathan did) and began to come up with recipes that would show it off. I settled on baking a batch of cookies, though the liqueur would do well in a cake, too.

To play up the caramel flavor, I used brown sugar in the cookies and stirred in a combination of white chocolate and butterscotch chips. The overall flavor from the liqueur was subtle, but noticeable, and the mix of sugar, chips and Bailey's was a winning combination. The cookies are on the softer/chewier side, so the chips actually stand out as adding a slightly firmer texture to the treat.

If Bailey's isn't your thing, or if you can't find the caramel, not to worry. I included some variations after the recipe: