Brownie-palooza

It's brownie week.  Yo.

Forgive me, please.  I don't know why I typed yo. 

I'm stretching the truth when I say it's brownie week, because I actually made the first batch of brownies last week.  Brownie Week and a Half, just doesn't have quite the same ring, does it?  Hence my use of the ridiculous title:  Brownie-palooza.

Semantics and my poor title choice aside, we're celebrating brownies around here.  Is there anything better to celebrate than brownies?  If I could only pick three things to eat for the rest of my life, I'd choose tortilla chips and salsa, grilled cheese sandwiches on sourdough bread and brownies.

In my opinion, brownies must be chewy and a little fudgy and never, I repeat, NEVER cakey.  Frosting is acceptable, but optional.  Nuts, on the other hand, are entirely unacceptable.

Brownie recipe options are pretty much limitless.  Last week I turned to my favorite peanut butter/chocolate combo for brownie recipe #1.

I used this recipe for, Peanut Butter Brownie Cups, but instead of the swirled pb/chocolate chips I used a bag of peanut butter morsels and milk chocolate chips, because that is what I had on hand.  Resourceful, yo.

The recipe yields 12 brownies, but because they're really rich, I divide the dough into 18 portions.  Your waistline, dentist and internist will thank me.

Brownie recipe #2  involves some more of my favorite baking ingredients:

Oreos

and cream cheese

Oreo Cream Cheese Swirled Brownies

Next up:  caramel brownies

I shall share them later, for they're still in the baking queue.

Speaking of the baking queue, I'm going to be up to my eyeballs in cupcakes later this week.  A certain someone is turning 9 on Friday and has requested purple frosted cupcakes for both her party on Saturday and for her classmates at lunch on Friday.

Ebony better carb up; she's going to be participating in a purple buttercream marathon later this week.

Yo.