Green Velvet Cheesecake Swirled Shamrock Brownies

This idea and recipe are totally from The Novice Chef's Marbled Red Velvet Cheesecake Brownies.  She made incredible red velvet heart brownies marbled with cheesecake.  I was so in love with hers and wanted to bake them myself.  However, with St. Patrick's Day on the horizon I decided to make green velvet brownies in a shamrock shape.  They turned out okay, but The Novice Chef's look much better.  I can say, though, that they are DELICIOUS!!  This recipe is a keeper.  AND, she used the cut-out scraps to make a milkshake.  Wow.  She's a genius!  You should definitely visit her site, she has a lot of great things going on.

Green Velvet Cheesecake Brownies

recipe and idea from The Novice Chef

Green Velvet Layer:

3 1/4 cups  flour

2 1/4 cups granulated sugar

3 tablespoons cocoa powder

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

3 large eggs

1 cup vegetable oil

4 tablespoons milk, divided

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

2 tablespoons green food coloring

2 teaspoons white vinegar

Cheesecake Layer:

2 8oz. packages of cream cheese, softened

3/4 cups granulated sugar

2 large eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees
• Grease 13x18 inch jelly roll pan (I used a cookie sheet with raised sides)
• In a large bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, cocoa powder, salt and baking powder, set aside.

• In a medium bowl, whisk together eggs, vegetable oil, 2 tablespoons of milk, vanilla extract, green food coloring,  and white vinegar.

• Add wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir until completely combined.
• The batter will be very thick, this is the texture you want.

• Remove 3/4 of the dough and place it in a medium bowl.
• Whisk the remaining 2 tablespoons of milk into the 1/4 of dough, set aside.

• Pour remaining 3/4 of the batter into pan.  Spread batter smooth with a spatula, making sure it reaches the edges of pan.

• In stand mixer or electric hand mixer, beat cream cheese and sugar until creamy.
• Add eggs and vanilla and beat until smooth with no lumps.

• Pour cream cheese mixture on top of green velvet brownie layer and spread until smooth, again, until it reaches the edges.

• Drop spoonfuls of remaining green velvet batter on top of the cheesecake layer.

• Using a knife, drag through green velvet and cheesecake to create swirls.

• Bake for 30 minutes (or until center is set and no longer jiggly), rotating pan 1/2 way through.  
• Let cool completely before cutting shapes with a cutter.

As I said, these taste phenomenal, but they could have been a little cuter!  I have something to aspire to, which is fine because I will make these again. I think I will use a little less green food coloring next time.  I did scale it back from 1 tablespoon the red velvet called for, but I think these still turned out a little too dark.  Anyway, my husband LOVED them.  Since he is not a sweets eater, I'm always thrilled to find something to bake for him on special occasions.  

Tomorrow, I'm going to take a break from green and make something springy and colorful.   Stay tuned!

Make Your Own Shamrock Shakes - Even Better Than the Real Thing!

I didn't believe it when I read the claim...a copycat recipe for Shamrock Shakes?  I could believe a tasty mint shake, but one that tastes like THE Shamrock Shake?  Is it possible to re-create it right in our kitchens?  In a word:  Yes!  Here's how you do it:

McDonald's Shamrock Shake Copycat Recipe

Recipe by Naptimechef

3 cups good quality vanilla ice cream

1 3/4 cups 1% milk

1/2 teaspoon peppermint extract

green food coloring

Put all of the ingredients into a blender and blend.  That's it.  Seriously.

 Here are my notes:

• I used 2% milk and it turned out fine.  I also used French Vanilla ice cream, which may alter the taste just a bit.  Next time I'll use plain old vanilla just for comparison.
• I have a blender, but I don't really blend things, so I didn't know which setting to put it on.  I used a little of each!  None of them seemed to combine all of the ice cream and milk, so I used a spoon to push the ice cream down (after turning the blender OFF, of course) and mix it up a bit.
• I wanted my shake a little thicker, so I used almost all of a 1.5 gallon carton of ice cream.
• This makes about 3 full beer mugs of shake.  You can easily make it for one or two people by playing around with the measurements.  It's certainly not an exact science, as some like their shakes thick, and some like them thin.
• A little mint extract goes a long way.  If I had added one drop more than 1/2 teaspoon, it would have been too strong.  Again, though, it's a preference thing.
• The dye did not mix up in the blender, I had to mix it by hand, after the ice cream and milk were blended.  I started with two drops of liquid green dye and ended up using quite a bit more until I reached the pale, green color I wanted.
• To store the leftovers I poured the shake back into the ice cream container and put it in the freezer.  When I am ready to serve more, I'll blend it back up and hope it tastes good.  :)
• It's delicious and I loved it.  You should make it, too!!

Sláinte!!

Make Way For These Baby Shower Favor Ducklings

I just love these little guys!   I had an order for baby shower favors and we chose ducks to go with the story book theme.  The first step, of course, it to make a good sugar cookie dough:

The  Best Rolled Sugar Cookies

From Allrecipes.com

1 1/2 cups butter, softened

2 cups white sugar

4 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

5 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until smooth.  Beat in eggs and vanilla.  Stir in the flour, baking powder and salt.  Cover and chill dough for at least on hour (or overnight).

Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.  Roll out dough on floured surface 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick.  Cut into shapes with any cookie cutter.  Place cookies 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheets.

Bake 6 to 8 minutes in preheated oven.  Cool completely.

I mixed up some icing with confectioners sugar and water.  Add a very small amount of water at a time, you will need less than you think to reach your desired thickness.  If you've added too much water just mix in more confectioners sugar.  I don't have exact measurements, I just eye it.  I make it thick enough to outline the cookie to make a border.  I will then fill the bordered area with flood icing, which is thinned out (by adding a few drops of water) thicker icing.  Be careful not to make it too thin, or it will be harder to control and may not stay within the border.  For these cookies I used a squeeze bottle to ice the cookies.  I filled the bottle with icing using a funnel.

Begin outlining the cooled cookies working with three or four cookies at a time.  With these ducks I did not outline the beak, as I wanted to use orange.  Outlining the beak in yellow would just look weird after filling it with orange!

Next, take the flood icing (I used a separate squeeze bottle for the flood icing) and fill in the outlined area of the cookie.  I used a toothpick to spread the icing to the edge of the border.

Let the filled in cookies set for a few hours before beginning the next steps.  I used the border-thick icing to add wings to the ducks.  I added a bit of red gel coloring to the leftover yellow to make a shade of orange, funneled it into a squeeze bottle, and added the beaks. (I took this photo at night so the coloring is off.)

The last step was adding the eyes.  I used edible eyes purchased in the baking section at Michaels craft store.  My date was a bit hectic, so I didn't place the eyes on before the icing set.  So, I had to use icing to "glue" them onto the duck.  With a toothpick I spread a generous amount of icing on the back of the eye and placed it onto the cookie.

Adorable!  The baby is a girl, so I wrapped the cookies in plastic bags and tied them with pink ribbon.  Congratulations to the parents-to-be!!