Thursday, September 8, 2011

two-bite nutella brownies


You know what made me choose this recipe?

  • Four ingredients (that I could shorten to three); and
  • 88 calories per brownie.

My criteria for baking these days mostly boils down to the latter, but the shortened ingredient list helped a lot, too.



I'm really surprised at how well these turned out for only three ingredients!

Actually, no. What I'm really surprised about is that I own a mini cupcake pan. Seriously, who knew? When did I get that? Wait. Mom probably gave it to me, so where did she get it? Strange. I miss a knife I haven't seen in 10 years, but I have no idea where a whole muffin tin came from. Brains work mysteriously.

I do not own any miniature cupcake liners, though, so I buttered and floured the hell out of that pan. Now that's the Idle Wife I know and love.





Anyway back to the brownies. They're sweet and fudgy with crispy edges and a crinkly top. Everything I look for in a brownie.

But, truthfully, my entire plan from the moment I saw that I owned a mini cupcake pan was this:


Yeah. That's a mini Drumstick (they make them!) squished on top of a mini brownie.

And this is what happened moments later:



It was delicious but you're not surprised at that, are you?

slightly adapted from Desserts 4 Today: Flavorful Desserts with Just Four Ingredients by Abby Dodge via Savory Sweet Life
makes 12 mini brownies

1/2 cup Nutella
1 egg
5 tablespoons flour

Find a mini muffin or cupcake tin. Line it with mini cupcake liners OR do what I did and butter and flour the hell out of each cup.

Mix all of the ingredients together. You don't have to get fancy. I just put them all together and blended with a spatula (you don't even have to get your mixer out for this one!).

Spoon the batter equally into the prepared mini muffin cups.

Bake at 350 for 10-12 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean (or until they look just done).

{note} You can make these with nuts and stuff, but personally, I don't like nuts and stuff in brownies.

{notes} I've since made these again, but we didn't have quite enough Nutella (I'm looking at you, Idle Husband); therefore, I didn't use a full measured 1/2 cup. I think because of that, the brownies turned out puffy and cake-like without as many brownie characteristics. They were still SUPER delish (maybe even more so). Go with it if you find yourself in a similar spot.

{noting} Don't be me and think, "Hey! What if I used peanut butter instead of Nutella and made peanut butter brownies!!" Cuz it won't work and it'll taste bland and even less peanut buttery than you could ever have imagined. You have to add sugar and they'll be more like cookies. I tried it. Trust me. We saved it by smearing -- you guessed it -- Nutella all over them.

{noted} Aren't the little cats cute?! My cousin sent them to me all the way from Australia, so unfortunately, I can't tell you where to get them. But I can tell you that they're super amazing little post-it cats -- post-it long cats! I didn't really know what they were at first, but when I figured it out, I decided they HAD to go on toothpicks. If you find yourself with something cute, don't forget it's SUPER easy to tape just about anything onto a toothpick to use as quick and easy cupcake decoration!

7 comments:

Lauren @ hey, who cut the cheese? said...

How cute! They look delish with the mini Drumsticks.

Laeli said...

I love those cats!
The brownies seem pretty simple, I bet they're nummy!

KimMalk said...

Hey! Found you via HomePodge. These look so good and wouldn't you know it, I have some spare Nutella! Do they really, truly taste like Nutella? I haven't baked with it yet, because I'm afraid the flavor will be hidden.

GALaxy said...

Lauren: You can't go wrong with brownies and ice cream and the cone really added a nice crunch.

Lael: The cats are the best! I'll probably never use them again for fear of running out.

Kim: They taste like a sweeter version of dark chocolate to me. You'll have to test them out for yourself!

Lindsey @ Hot Polka Dot said...

Omg I had no idea brownies could be that easy! I'm going to have to try this for sure. Those kitties are so adorable I could die! I love that photo with the drumstick hugging the brownie. So cute!

Anonymous said...

I made these a few minutes ago, while they were cooking my sister and I were both in agreement that they smelled like holidays (vacations for Americans :P).

They tasted quite nice, there was a definite taste of dark chocolate with an aftertaste of hazel nut (surprise eh?) though they didn't taste very chocolatey, I think that adding some chocolate chips would help with that, though I don't know how nuts would go because they already taste of hazel nuts so you'd need to find something that is compatible with them.

Overall though they are really nice, especially for the amount of time/effort that goes into them. They'd really be nice with ice cream/cold milk (if milk is your thing)

Though mine were slightly larger (only made 9) so that might explain the slight dryness that they had, but again, adding chocolate chips might help with that. (also, had to add some cooking time, so that might have dried them out further)

Stephanie said...

These sound delicious.. esp with the mini drumstick. I'm also loving your adorable kitty things!!