So the Brownies were awesome! I also realized that my attempt at bolding the ingredients didn't work out. I'm not sure why but I'm going to upload a few of my recent pictures that I've been working on. I've been using my macro lens for these and I'm in love with it. Fall is coming soon so I'm really looking forward to taking pretty leaf pictures and such with it. But here is a few from my summer endeavors.

My friend Krystal's dog, Axel! He's such a cutie playing on the beach.

Seastar at the Atlantis Marine World Aquarium on LI.

Flowers from my mom's garden.

Peanut Butter Brownies!

             Tomorrow is the Perunion. Basically everyone in my class that went to Peru are reuniting for a day of BBQing and festivities. I figured I'd make something yummy to bring along and please the pallettes of my fellow classmates. I decided to make brownies but not just average box brownies. I made, from scratch, peanut butter filled brownies. This is a first for me because before this I was a boring box brownie babe. Now I'll never go back! So after a quick trip to Wal-Mart for a few ingredients I gathered my mixing bowls, blasted my Ipod and got my bake on.

            Start with:
1 1/2 cups Sugar
1/2 cup softened butter
2 Tb water

Mix these in a microwave safe bowl and microwave for about 45 seconds so that the butter is melted.
Add in about 1 1/2 cups Semi-Sweet chocolate chips and put back in microwave to melt the chips. Mix. Stir in 2 eggs and 1 tsp vanilla. Add 2 cups flour and 1/2 tsp baking soda. Mix.  Stir in 1 1/2 cups Milk Chocolate chips. Don't melt these!!

In order to get the perfect amount of peanut butter in each bite these need to be made individually. So that means you have to use 2-12 holed muffin pans to bake them in. So spray them up with some cooking spray or grease them with butter. Spoon the mixture in each cup evenly. This should make 24 brownies easily. Bake at 350 for about 15-20 minutes. You're going to want the tops to be firm but the center of it to be gooey when you insert a toothpick into it. When you take them out, let them cool and the middles should fall in on themselves. THIS IS GOOD! :o) If that doesn't work, you failed, start over

Just kidding! You can press them in with a spoon lightly. Put about 2 cups of peanut butter into a microwave safe bowl and melt for about 45 seconds. Now the fun part! Spoon the melted peanut butter into the middle of each brownie and think about how amazing they are going to taste! Ok you don't have to think about it but trust me, you will! Then take some leftover milk chocolate chips and put them on top of the peanut butter filling. Let Cool and Enjoy!

As I write this I haven't tried one yet but I'm going to attempt to wait until the BBQ tomorrow. This is going to be hard. I'll update tomorrow night with the results.

Side Note: I realized with my last post that I didn't really write a formal ingredients list. I kind of just inserted each ingredient as I typed and I decided to just stick with this way because it feels better to me so I'll BOLD all the ingredients from now on so that you can find them easier in the posts.

White Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake

         OK so this is my first new post in a while and I have decided to start baking and blogging about it! I don't think its going to be the same day every week considering that I do have a job but I'm going to try and update at least once a week with a new baking recipe for anybody that does care to read my blog and give me some feedback. I'm also going to put up some of my photos that I've been taking and editing.
     
       Today I tried my hand at making a cheesecake. Naturally I cant just make something plain so I made it with raspberries and white chocolate.

My ingredients:

Crust:
Preheat the oven to 350
 I bought a pre-made pie crust (I know I'm a cheater ) but I also wound up making a 2nd homemade one because I realized that I made twice as much filling.
                  1 cup finely ground graham crackers
                  2 Tb melted butter (but you may need to add more in case the crackers don't stick together....which is what I had to do)
                   2 Tb sugar
Mix these together and press them in a pie pan up against the wall....I had some help from my roomie with this part.
Put the pan in the oven for 10 minutes and let it cool
Lower the oven to 325

Filling:

                32 ounces room temperature cream cheese
                1 and 1/2 cup sugar
Blend together until fluffy. Add a pinch of salt and a tsp of vanilla extract and mix. Mix in 4 eggs, one at a time.
Melt a 4 ounce white chocolate bar in a double boiler and mix into the cream cheese filling.
Pour batter into pie pans.

Raspberry Swirl:
                   
                6 ounces or so of fresh raspberries
                2 Tb sugar
Blend the raspberries and using a sieve (or metal mesh strainer in my case), separate the seeds from the juice. Then whisk in the sugar and drop the mixture into the pie pans sporadically. Using a wooden skewer or toothpick swirl the raspberry topping around to make some pretty designs and  place the pies into the oven for about an hour until the pies are just a bit wobbly in the center.
Let them cool for about 6 hours or overnight in the fridge.

I also saved some raspberry filling so that I could drizzle it over the finished cake!

Some funny notes on my process:

• I don't currently own a hand-mixer so I decided to use my ninja blender to mix the creamcheese but it is meant for pizza and cookie dough so I don't think it was a big deal.
• My roommates decided to hover around laughing at me and my attempts at baking. 
• Apparently I can't even do simple cooking math. 
• Rachel likes to pound graham crackers as if she were using a meat tenderizer. 
• Greai the cat decided she wanted to lick the cream cheese bowl after it was done.

Later on after the cooling period, basically after I came home from work, Rachel and I tried a piece and it tasted delectable! I already have a bunch of people at work requesting me to bring in a piece for them.