If you've ever made brownies, they're not as easy as they look. Here are a couple of hints for a better brownie.

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A former Slashfoodie herself, Nicole is the extraordinary baker behind Baking Bites -- a recipe blog for anyone with flour on their sleeves and a taste for the divine. She stepped away from the kitchen (actually, the horse stable) to chat with us a bit about life since Slashfood, and why her brownies are fudgier than mine.

What have you been up to since leaving Slashfood?
I write Baking Bites now. That's pretty much what I've been doing food-wise since I left Slashfood. It's not a very exciting answer.

So are you dedicating more time Baking Bites now?
Well, before I wrote for Slashfood, I had a blog for a couple of years called Baking Sheet, which I updated a couple of times per week. I kept that going while writing for Slashfood, but after I left, I changed the name of the site and made it more formal. I dedicate more time to my personal blog now than I did while I was writing – and before I was writing – for Slashfood.

It's clear from reading about you that you love to cook everything, so why a site mainly baking?
Because I like baking. All cooking is great, but for me, baking is really interesting. I like the flavors and how everything comes together. I love the magic and the science of the oven. Cooking for me is ... I don't want to say it easier, because I don't find baking difficult, but it is just not just as interesting to me usually. You can go from grilling a chicken to grilling a steak, but baking a cake is a little more special.

Anything happening in the kitchen today?
Not at the moment. Last night I made a lemon cake and later I might make some flatbread. The flatbread isn't set in stone yet. I'll make a list of things that I want to make but it changes. I'll get a whim for something with mint or vanilla and I'll totally change my mind.

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I realize that some of you out there might just be ready to take a break from chocolate (this is never a problem that I have) after the candy-indulgences of Valentine's Day. However, for those of you are ready for another round of cacao-based based deliciousness, then do I have a recipe for you. This is not one I discovered on my own, but I am bookmarking it for future reference.

You see, last night we had a birthday dinner for Scott. Some friends came over and we ate roasted chicken, mashed potatoes, roasted brussels sprouts and a really lovely baguette from Metropolitan bakery. Because Scott is something of a champagne fan, I made the Champagne Chiffon Cake that Nicole created for New Year's Eve. In addition to that dessert, Joe brought a pan of brownies that he had made earlier that afternoon, when the baking bug had struck. He found the recipe on Al Dente, the Amazon.com food blog. He used the variation that included pecans and dried cherries and they were so good. Fudgy and thick, with a great consistency. This recipe is a keeper.

I first spotted Ina Garten's recipe for Outrageous Brownies on Smitten Kitchen. In the past, I haven't been much of a brownie baker, so I read Deb's post and moved on. But then I saw Ina make them on the Barefoot Contessa and they looked amazing and delicious. The recipe made an impression on me, so much so that I looked it up online and bookmarked it. I nearly made them on New Year's Eve but instead opted for a recipe from the Gourmet Cookbook. Those brownies were mediocre the first night and increasingly better each subsequent evening (and we did eat them until they were all gone).

Sunday afternoon, my friend Johnny called to say that he was putting together an impromptu dinner for that evening. When I accepted the invitation, he asked if I wouldn't be willing to bring dessert. I said of course and started plotting. I briefly considered making a fruit tart before deciding that brownies would be best. Luckily, I just happened to have all the ingredients necessary for these brownies and so started measuring, melting and mixing. They came together quickly and baked up in just under half an hour. I was a little concerned when I first cut into them, because they seemed a little greasy (they do call for a full pound of butter), but as they cooled completely, they firmed up and developed the ability to hold all that butter with aplomb.

These are excellent brownies. They are deeply fattening, but they are totally delicious. I took the leftovers to my cousin's house tonight for dinner and we ended up standing around the plastic container in which they were stored, eating them in broken pieces as a pre-dinner dessert course. If you want a really indulgent, fool-proof, amazing brownie recipe, look no further. Thanks Ina, for the fabulous recipe.

Up until yesterday afternoon, my boyfriend and I didn't have much of a New Year's Eve plan. There were options, a couple of different friends were having parties, one of my favorite bars in the whole world was having a no coverage charge evening and some friends had invited us over for pizza (sadly, I didn't actually get the text message with that invite until after we ordered take out sushi), but no hard and fast plan.

While we were having lunch at Marathon Grill at around 3 pm, we stumbled upon what became an integral part of the plan: brownie sundaes. With that idea in place, we ran to the store for ingredients. However, when we got back to my place and I started looking at recipes, I discovered that I had forgotten to by any unsweetened chocolate and I was fresh out (I've been away for two weeks and my memory of my supply inventory has gotten foggy). However, I had a bunch of bittersweet chocolate, some semi-sweet chips and unsweetened cocoa powder and decided to improvise based on a recipe for Triple-Chocolate Fudge Brownies from The Gourmet Cookbook (the big yellow one).

The batter was amazing tasting and so I had high hopes for the brownies. And they were good, but not as amazing as I wanted them to be. However, with vanilla ice cream and whipped cream, they were definitely doable. However, they worked some alchemy last night and when I woke up this morning, they had become the brownies I had hoped for--dense, fudgy and transcendentally chocolate-y. They are worth making, especially if you are able to let them rest for 12-24 hours before digging in.

If you're heading out on the town for New Year's Eve, well go ahead, get dolled up and ignore this post. This one is for those of us who will be doing the razzling and dazzling at home (in the kitchen, of course).

All you need is a little 151-proof rum, a lighter, and no fear of burning off those gorgeously groomed eyebrows. For whatever dessert you plan to set ablaze, set it in the middle of a dish with a slight rim around the edge to hold the liquor. Set the dessert -- in the picture above, it's a brownie that has been cut with scalloped biscuit cutter and a small scoop of vanilla ice cream -- on the plate where you plan to ignite it. Don't even think about lighting it up in the kitchen and walking out to the dining room with an open fire.

Pour about a ½ ounce of the liquor around the dessert. Once you *breathe in, breathe out*, light a match, set it to the edge of the liquid, and watch the flames soar. It takes about 1 minute for the flames to die down and the plate is left with a warm dessert.

Let's not get all crazy technical here by telling us that a brownie isn't a cookie. We already got all kinds of heat about dictionary definitions, etc when we told the lucky recipients that they were receiving the results of our cookie-baking chaos. "Cookie baking?" they asked? "Cookie?" These are brownies!

Ungrateful little *censored*. We had it in our minds to snatch the batch back and run off with our "brownies."

If we have to get technical about it, let's just say that these Peanut Butter Cream Brownies are peanut butter cream and chocolate fudge "bar cookies" and be done with it. The bottom layer is a standard fudge brownie recipe that uses cocoa powder, but if you have your own favorite recipe, use it, keeping in mind that the brownies bake in a smaller pan. In other words, if your recipe goes into a 9x13 pan, make half of it.

The top layer is a peanut butter and cream cheese mixture, hence the name Peanut Butter Cream. We used crunchy peanut butter, not because we think tiny chopped hard things tainting peanut butter is okay, but because we used all the smooth peanut butter making regular peanut butter cookies.

My sister makes excellent brownies. Sometimes she goes for the chewy, fudgy kind, and on Thanksgiving she made the thick cake-like brownies that are just as good, just different.

Today is National Chocolate Brownie Day, and since it's the holiday season it gives you yet another reason to spend the day (or night, after Christmas shopping) making a great treat that will make us all gain weight and declare a New Year's Resolution to "really eat better in 2008!" Here's a recipe for Very Chocolate Brownies from AllRecipes.com, and here's one for Pumpkin Chocolate Brownies from Libby's. And don't forget this recipe for Quadruple Chocolate Brownies I posted a couple of months ago.

As if anyone needs a holiday as an excuse to eat chocolate!

Today is National Chocolate Day, and I thought that instead of having one post where I mention the day and list some recipes I'd do a bunch of posts that have to do with chocolate the entire day. So expect recipes, facts about the history of chocolate, maybe even some posts on things that you can make out of chocolate. I'll let you know what I find. Tune in throughout the day for more.

Mmmm...chocolate.

You know what I haven't made in a while? Yes, you can guess it from the title of the post. Brownies! I've been making my brownies the same way for years, but I think it's time to shake things up a little bit.

The cool food blog Andrea's Recipes has a recipe for Michael's Favorite Brownies, and it sounds perfect. I particularly like the desciption: "chewy, fudgy, with that slightly crackly top." I might even add some cayenne pepper to see what that does to them (though I'll skip the walnuts). Full recipe after the jump.

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Martha Stewart has done a little Spring cleaning. Actually, she has undergone a complete overhaul with the newly redesigned MarthaStewart.com, which was unveiled today. New features on the site include recipe searches, how-to videos, and "best of" sections that spotlight content from her magazines, TV shows, and radio appearances.

Say what you will, this woman knows her stuff. If you are looking to make brownies, Martha offers them up five different ways in her chocaholics section. Or, if you bought too many eggs for Easter, use them up by making Deviled Eggs in a variety of flavors, as pictured above.

There are a lot of people who, as a general rule, eschew baking mixes. After all, why use a boxed mix when you can do it yourself and produce a better result? This standard may hold true when it comes to the average inexpensive store-bought cake mix, but there is a wide range of high quality, gourmet mixes available now that produced baked goods that will rival not only homemade things, but those from pro bakeries, as well. In fact, many of the mixes are coming from these pros to begin with. Jacques Torres has recently launched a line of baking mixes for several of his most popular chocolate treats: Pure Bliss Brownies, French Kiss Cookies, and Mudslide Cookies. The mixes are made in conjunction with King Arthur Flour and contain all the necessary basics for replicating the chocolatier's favorite treats at home, including a lot of chocolate. They retail for $12.95 each.

I sampled the end results all of the mixes at the SF Fancy Foods Show a few weeks ago, and while all three were excellent, the chocolate-filled chocolate chip French Kiss Cookies were probably my favorite. If you want to give one of them a try from scratch as a comparison, you can find the recipe for Jacques Torres's Mudslides here.