Category: Food

Another recipe from my mom. I haven’t tried this one yet, so let me know how it is!

Cheesecake Brownies

Brownies:

1/2 cup flour

1/2 cup cocoa

1/3 cup melted butter

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 cup chopped nuts (optional)

Cheesecake batter:

2 Tbs butter, room temperature

3 oz cream cheese, room temperature

1/4 cup sugar

1 egg

1 Tbs flour

1/2 tsp vanilla

To make brownies: Sift together flour and cocoa. Mix butter, sugar, eggs, and vanilla. Mix together the flour and butter mixtures. Add nuts

To make cheesecake batter: Blend butter and cream cheese. Add sugar and beat well. Add egg, flour and vanilla.

Spread about a third of the brownie batter in a greased 8-inch square pan. Spread cheese batter on top. Drop spoonfuls of remaining brownie batter on top and swirl with spatula. Bake at 350°F for 30 min. Store cooled leftovers in fridge.

Substitutions

Use your own favorite brownie recipe instead. Top with cream cheese mixture and swirl.

We have a lot of cocoa powder, so we’ve been making brownies. In an effort to make them healthier, they’ve turned out kinda …odd. Definitely edible, but not especially brownie-like. This is the original, pre-substitution recipe, from my mom’s 4-H days.

4-H Brownies

1/2 cup flour

1/2 cup cocoa

1/3 cup melted butter

3/4-1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 cup nuts (optional)

Sift together flour and cocoa. Mix butter, sugar, eggs, and vanilla. Mix flour and butter mixtures. Add nuts. Place in greased 8-inch square pan. Bake at 350°F for 30 min.

Substitutions:

Use whole wheat or whole wheat pastry flour, or any other kind of flour. Because brownies are a type of quick bread (not leavened by yeast), they don’t require gluten. When substituting whole grain flour for white flour, however, you usually need to increase the amount of liquid.

Add mashed beans to make the brownies fudgier. If you add enough, the texture gets lighter and almost sponge-like, although the pores are very small. At that point, it isn’t much like a brownie, but it still tastes good!

Make cheesecake brownies by swirling a mixture of cream cheese, sugar, and vanilla into the brownie batter. I’ll post a recipe for this in the future.

Using alcohol instead of water prevents gluten from developing. Any type of alcohol is fine, although higher proof is more desirable, and you can use flavored types if you prefer. How about beer crust??

Standard Pastry Crust

(makes 8- or 9-inch one-crust pie)

1 cup flour

1/2 teas. salt

1/3 cup butter

about 3 Tab. ice-cold vodka

(for an 8-inch two-crust pie, use 1-1/3 cups flour; 1/2 teas. salt; 7 Tab. butter; 4 Tab. cold vodka or so)

Measure flour and salt into a bowl.  Cut in the shortening.  Add the vodka and hope that the flour is moistened and dough almost cleans the side of the bowl.  You may need to add more vodka.  Gather the dough into a ball (or two if for a two-crust pie).  Carefully flatten the ball(s) so that a round shape is maintained.  Refrigerate at least an hour or overnight before rolling out — this is supposed to help with gluten reduction.

Apple pie recipe from my mom. This particular write-up is a compilation of several different recipes and techniques, and has not been vetted so be careful.

The recipe was adapted from a Cook’s Illustrated recipe and a Joy of cooking (or maybe Betty Crocker) recipe, seen below.

Apple pie recipe (makes 8-inch pie)

Pastry for 8-inch two-crust pie

5 cups thinly sliced pared tart apples

1/3 cup sugar (this is less than the original recipe recommends)

1/4 cup flour (the original recipe calls for 3 Tbs but juicy apples need more) or 2 Tbs tapioca starch

1/4 to 1/2 tsp cinnamon

dash salt

1 Tbs butter

1. Shrink apples by gently heating them in a Dutch oven (recommended) or thick-bottomed pan.  Then let them cool.
2. Preheat oven to 425° (or a lower temperature, if you prefer. 350° or 375° are probably fine too). 
3. The next step is tricky because now you have to mix together the sugar, flour, cinnamon, and salt AND then add that mixture to the apples.  It will be messy because the apples are juicy.  You can drain the juice but that seems like waste of good apple juice. 
4. Roll the pastry and line the pie pan.  Put the filling in the pastry-line pan.  Dot with the butter.  Cover with the top crust.  Seal and flute edges.  Brush the top with milk or water and sprinkle with a generous amount of sugar.  Cut some vents.  Place the pie on parchment on a tray (to catch drips).
5. Bake 40 to 50 minutes or until the crust is brown and juice begins to bubble through slits in the crust.  You may prefer to start the pie at the high temperature (425°) and reduce the heat (I’m assuming to 375° or so) after about 15 minutes.  If the crust is nicely brown but the pie isn’t done, make a tent with foil.

Substitutions

Use different apples, depending on taste. It is usually recommended to use a combination of sweet (Golden Delicious, Jonagold, Braeburn) and tart (Granny Smith, Empire, Cortland) apples.

Use tapioca starch instead of wheat flour. A smaller amount (1 1/2 tsp for every Tbs of flour called for) gels just as well, and doesn’t risk imparting a chalky texture.

The blog seems to be turning into a repository for family recipes, which I’m pretty happy about (: Please enjoy!

This recipe is from my great aunt (by marriage, but she may have been related from another direction too. There were some first-cousin marriages). Unlike most pecan pie recipes, it features a not-too-sweet filling. (The pecans weren’t included in the original recipe, so please use your judgement on how many to add.)

Pecan Pie Recipe

Substitutions:

Pecan pie is usually too sweet, so I was considering subbing brown rice syrup, which is super viscous, but not very sweet, for the corn syrup. Then again, this recipe is supposed to be perfect.