brownies with my boyfriend

Happy Wednesday everyone! I hope you are doing well this fine day. This week's project is back to the world of baking. My boyfriend is making his blog debut and we are here to show you that you can make fancy-looking brownies easily at home! We made these particular brownies to bring to a Super Bowl get together. GO PATS! I know all of America except New England hates the Pats, but I am a NH girl so you just have to deal with it!

Anyways, back to  brownies. These brownies were made using two different box/bagged mixes, a brownie mix and a chocolate chip cookie mix. Below are the mixes we used simply because we had them on hand, but obviously any mixes would do. the only think I would recommend is using a brownie mix that is just plain brownies and not also filled with chocolate chunks or chips. There are many other components that go into these brownies, so having just a plain base ensures that the brownies don't go overboard.

So first we mixed together the cookie mix according to the directions on the package, while also adding in a little vanilla and cinnamon. I would recommend making the cookie dough a few hours before you plan on baking the brownies. Making the dough from a powdered mix leaves you with a very room temperature, sticky dough and this recipe works better with a chilled dough. If you don't have the time to wait, another option would be to use refrigerated, pre-made cookie dough which would already have the firmness you are looking for.

After the cookie dough was chilled we mixed up the brownie batter according to the directions on the package. We sprayed a glass 9 by 13 pan with non-stick spray and poured half of the brownie batter into the pan. Then we used about a third of the cookie dough and rolled about 25 one inch balls and dropped them all over the brownie batter. Since it was my boyfriend's idea to use the cookie dough in this way it seems only appropriate to insert some action shots of him right here. He said it was fine for me to use these pictures, don't worry.

We then poured the remaining brownie batter over the cookie dough balls and spread it out as best we could so that all of the dough was covered by batter. It was my idea to cover different sections of the brownies with different toppings so we then scavanged through our cabinets to see what we could use. We settled on rainbow sprinkles, walnuts, Kit Kats and peanut M&Ms. We added some rainbow sprinkles and walnuts each to their own corner of the brownies and then put them into the oven to bake. Since we didn't want the Kit Kats and M&Ms to melt, we decided to wait and add those after the brownies were cooked.

The brownies took about 25 minutes to cook; you could easily use a smaller pan for this recipe and end up with a thicker brownie; it would just require a longer cook time. After the brownies were cooked and had cooled for about 10 minutes we pushed in the peanut M&Ms and the Kit Kats. We also added some caramel to the Kit Kat section for extra fun. And here you have our fancy shmancy brownies!

I think these brownies came out well (and they tasted great) and I loved doing this project with my guy. What is your favorite dessert to bake? Let me know in the comments below!

 - Rebecca