This recipe I came up with on the fly, out of the blue, in order to have something quick and easy for dessert. I looked around at other recipes but I can’t find anything really that it is like. As you may have noticed I really love baking cakes and that’s what I mostly do when I want to bake. The problem with cakes is how long most of them can take to make. These brownies were easy to make and quite good. They have more of a cakey texture and the peanut butter is a wonderful combination. The honey adds extra sweetness and a moist texture. I usually prefer fudgy brownies but these turned out well.

The grocery store has been out of arrowroot starch for a few weeks now. Either they won’t restock it or they have moved its location and I can’t find it. I didn’t want to go back to using cornflour (corn starch) or potato starch, so I decided to see if coconut flour could replace it. It seems to work just fine. Because it absorbs so much moisture it acts in many ways similar to a starch. If you can’t get or would rather not use coconut flour, then arrowroot starch, cornflour (cornstarch), or potato starch would work instead. In case you were wondering, it did not impart the taste of coconut. If you used something in place of the coconut flour, then the flours are easy to find.

Peanut Butter Honey Brownies

80 ml (1/3 cup) oil

225g (1 cup) caster sugar

3 eggs

1 tablespoon vanilla

1/4 teaspoon salt

60g (1/2 cup) cocoa

110g (1 cup) gluten-free flour blend (I used white rice flour, tapioca flour, and coconut flour)

80 ml (1/3 cup) water

3 tablespoons peanut butter

2 tablespoons honey, golden syrup, maple syrup, or agave syrup

Preheat oven to 180C (350F). Grease a 23 cm (9 inch) square tin. In a bowl, mix together oil, sugar, eggs, and vanilla. Add salt, cocoa, gluten-free flour blend, and water. Mix until smooth. Pour half the batter into prepared tin. Put dollops of peanut butter on the batter. Drizzle the honey or preferred syrup over the batter. Pour the other half of the batter over the top and spread gently to cover the peanut butter layer. Bake for 25 minutes or until a skewer inserted comes out clean. Cool on a cooling rack. Makes 9-16 brownies, depending on how small you cut them. Enjoy!

I thought of putting these brownies together when I saw Paula Deen making Maggie’s Decadent Brownies on the Food Network. She said it reminded her of her Marsh Mud Cake. There are so many different variations on this recipe that whatever floats your boat you could find something that suits.

I don’t usually do mixes. I prefer to mix up a substitute for the mix if the recipe calls for it, but my grandmother gave me Bob’s Red Mill Brownie Mix for Christmas, so I baked it up in this recipe to see what it would be like. I’ve made four things from gluten-free mixes ever I think, including this one. Sometimes they can be fun to experiment with and the better ones taste pretty good.

These were good for what they are: something easy to whip up. They were best just out of the oven. After they cooled I found them too salty. Heating them up improved the richness of the taste but upped the sweet factor so much that I found them too sweet. The nuts softened up in the baking and I would have preferred them crunchier. Next time I would put the nuts on top of the baked brownies after the marshmallows instead. With ice cream these brownies really found a balance, especially with strawberry, reminding me of a chocolate-covered strawberry.

Ooey Gooey Rocky Road Fudge Brownies

1 Bob’s Red Mill gluten-free brownie mix

170g (3/4 cup) butter, melted

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

175 ml (3/4 cup) warm water

120g (1 cup) chopped pecans

150g (3 cups) mini marshmallows

Fudge Topping

1 395g (14 oz) tin condensed milk

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

340g (12 oz) semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 175C (350F). Grease a 23 x 33 cm (9 x 13 inch) baking dish. Place brownie mix in a bowl. Beat in melted butter, vanilla extract, water, and pecans until combined. Pour batter into prepared dish and bake for 25 minutes or until a skewer inserted comes out clean. Immediately sprinkle with marshmallows, so the hot brownies melt them a bit and they get all nice and gooey. Next, prepare the topping: in a saucepan over low heat, combine the milk, vanilla extract, and chocolate chips. Stir until the chocolate chips are melted. Remove from heat and pour over the brownies. Spread the topping out evenly, so every bite gets as much of all three layers as possible . Enjoy!

This recipe is from Baking Bites. Nicole says it was inspired by Trader Joe’s Peppermint Jo-Jos, a peppermint Oreo chocolate sandwich cookie. She says they are one of her favourite recipes of 2007 and no matter how many times she baked them they were always eaten up. With such good reviews I just had to try these. I love chocolate and brownies and I have made brownies with Oreos before, but not peppermint and Oreos.

There is no Trader Joe’s in Aberdeen and gluten-free peppermint Oreos are difficult to come by. Nicole suggests using other chocolate-peppermint cookies or to use plain Oreos with 1 teaspoon of peppermint extract. I went this route, but added 2 teaspoons of peppermint extract instead, as after adding 1 the batter didn’t have enough peppermint for my tastes. If you can get gluten-free peppermint chocolate sandwich cookies, then by all means, use those. If you can’t, then plain chocolate sandwich cookies and peppermint extract are wonderful.

I must agree with Nicole. Despite being skeptical of how much sugar went into them, these are some of the best brownies I have ever tasted. They are rich indeed; and I have read so many brownie recipes claiming to be rich and then been disappointed by the lack of intensity when I made them. These brownies do not disappoint. My husband, who is picky about his brownies and not as fond of chocolate as I am, wanted seconds. The peppermint comes through nicely but does not overwhelm, balancing out the rich chocolate. I couldn’t taste the quinoa flour, so my hunch was correct, other flavours help mellow it. The Oreos are a nice texture. They soften up in baking and provide a nice texture difference from the fudgy brownie. These are fantastic. Thanks Nicole for a fantastic recipe.

(Isn’t that a fine tophat the brownie is wearing?)

Peppermint Cookies and Cream Brownies

225g (1 cup) butter

170g (6 oz) unsweetened chocolate, finely chopped (I used Ghirardelli)

675g (3 cups) caster sugar (Yes, that’s correct; it’s that much sugar!)

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 teaspoon peppermint extract (optional) (I used 2 teaspoons)

4 large eggs

185g (1 2/3 cups) gluten-free flour blend (xanthan gum is not necessary, but won’t hurt if your blend has it. I used quinoa flour, sweet rice flour, and arrowroot starch)

40g (1/3 cup) cocoa powder

216g (3 cups) roughly chopped gluten-free chocolate sandwich cookies (Oreo-type, with peppermint, if you can get them), approximately 18

Preheat oven to 175C (350F). Grease a 23 x 33 cm (9 x 13 inch) tin or line it with foil or paper and grease lightly.

In a saucepan over low heat, melt together butter and chocolate. Whisk in sugar, salt, vanilla extract, and peppermint extract (if using), then turn off heat. Whisk in eggs, one at a time, waiting until each is fully incorporated before adding the next. Stir in flour and cocoa powder until mixture is uniform. Stir in Oreos and pour batter into prepared tin. Crush 3-4 additional Oreos finely and sprinkle on top of batter (optional).

Bake for about 35 minutes (mine took 35 as well), until a skewer inserted comes out with moist crumbs, but not coated with batter.

Cool brownies completely, then slice. Nicole says she got 36 brownies or 48 small ones. It depends on how you slice it. If you don’t want to slice it, then you’ll have one extremely large brownie .

I went back to my recipe list to find more that use marshmallow. (I believe there will be only one more after this one, I promise!) This recipe is from Laurie at Quirky Cupcake. She adapted a recipe from Deb at Smitten Kitchen. Laurie says her marshmallow disappeared into the blondie and she wouldn’t melt them next time. I decided to follow her advice and instead poked all of them into the batter. Well, they certainly didn’t disappear. Instead they toasted up as if roasted over a fire. Each bit of marshmallow was sweet and crispy. If the marshmallow were mixed in they might melt and stay gooey.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t as pleased with the rest. There just wasn’t enough banana and peanut butter for me. I didn’t swirl the peanut butter filling into the blondie, but it didn’t taste of peanut butter by itself either. Mixing them together might blend the flavours better, but I’m not so sure. Browning the butter might add some depth. Next time, I would double the amount of peanut butter especially, add another banana, and add some vanilla extract to the topping. It certainly does look interesting though. My daughter called it a pizza!  Thanks Laurie and Deb for sharing this recipe.

Memphis Fluffernutter Blondies

115g (8 tablespoons) butter, melted

200g (1 cup) brown sugar

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla or 1/2 teaspoon almond extract

Pinch of salt

110g (1 cup) gluten-free flour blend (xanthan gum is not necessary but won’t hurt if your blend has it)

1-2 bananas, mashed

Peanut Butter Filling

170g (6 oz) cream cheese

115g (1/2 cup) peanut butter

55g (1/4 cup) caster sugar

1 egg

2 tablespoons milk

Marshmallow

Half a bag of marshmallow (I used 16 large ones)

15g (1 tablespoon) butter

Preheat oven to 175C (350F). Butter a 20 cm (8 inch) square tin. Mix melted butter with brown sugar and beat until smooth. Beat in egg and vanilla or almond extract. Add salt, flour, and banana and mix until well incorporated. Pour into prepared tin.

Prepare peanut butter filling by beating cream cheese, peanut butter, sugar, egg, and milk until smooth and creamy. (Mine was a bit lumpy.) Pour mixture over blondie batter in tin.

Melt marshmallow and butter in a sauce pan over medium heat until smooth. Pour over peanut butter and blondie batter in tin. Swirl with a knife to mix the three components together.

Bake for 30 minutes or until set in the middle. (I had to bake mine for 25 extra minutes). Cool completely before cutting them.

I have a list of recipes. Whenever I find a recipe, usually on a blog or a recipe site, I put it on my list. My list is incredibly long and the point of it is not really to bake everything on it, though I certainly aspire to that, but to not forget recipes I’ve found. Since I now have a surplus of marshmallow, I went looking for recipes using marshmallow. This recipe for Fluffernutter Brownies is from Virtual Frolic. She put it together from David Lebovitz’s Dulce de Leche Brownies and a Peanut Butter Swirl from Good Housekeeping. I put bits of whole marshmallow in between the layers on one side and you can see on the right where it is darker, the marshmallow bubbled up and melted there. These brownies have a difference in texture between the peanut butter and chocolate layers that is pleasing.

Fluffernutter Brownies

115g (8 tablespoons) salted or unsalted butter, cut into pieces

170g (6oz) bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, finely chopped

25g (1/4 cup) unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder

3 large eggs

200g (1 cup) caster sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

140g (1 cup) gluten-free flour blend (xanthan gum is not necessary, but won’t hurt if your blend has it)

optional: 100g (1 cup) toasted pecans or walnuts, coarsely chopped

Peanut Butter Swirl:

225g (1 cup) peanut butter

75g (1/3 cup) caster sugar

55g (4 tablespoons) butter, softened

15g (2 tablespoons) gluten-free flour

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 large egg

16 large marshmallow, melted

Preheat the oven to 175C (350 F). Line a 20 cm (8 in) square tin with foil, creating an overhang over the sides.

Melt the butter in a bowl (heatproof) set over a pot of boiling water, essentially a double boiler. Add the chocolate and stir until the chocolate is melted. Remove from heat and whisk in the cocoa powder until smooth. Add the eggs one at a time, then stir in the sugar, vanilla extract, then the flour. Mix in the nuts, if using.

Now for the peanut butter swirl. Beat together butter, peanut butter, sugar, flour, vanilla extract, and egg until smooth and well blended. Melt the marshmallow and add to the rest. Scrape half the chocolate batter into the prepared tin. Spoon about 2/3rds to 3/4th of the peanut butter swirl onto the chocolate batter. Spread the remaining chocolate batter over the top. Drop spoonfuls of the remaining peanut butter swirl over the top of that. Use a knife to swirl the peanut butter slightly, then it lives up to its name. So it goes: chocolate, peanut butter, chocolate, peanut butter. (I put bits of whole marshmallow between the layers one one side, but it adds a stickiness that not everyone may prefer.)

Bake for 35 to 45 minutes. (Mine were done in 35.) The brownies are done when they feel slightly firm to the touch. Remove from the oven and cool completely.