Happy Holidays!

And my holiday, whatever you celebrate, present to you, dear reader, is a delicious recipe for brownies. Adapted from a recipe I found at Craving Chronicles which was in turn adapted from OvenHaven, I give you my spin on Peanut Butter and Nutella Brownies.

These brownies have a delicious chocolate flavor along with just a hint of peanut butter and hazelnut flavors. The ratios I finally came up with make a chewy, fudgy brownie that stays together well when cutting.

Mmm...these were consumed soon after this photo was taken.

Ingredients:
½ cup butter, melted
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs
½ cup all-purpose flour
½ cup cocoa powder
¼ teaspoon baking powder
Pinch of salt
2 tbsp peanut butter (chunky, smooth, whatever you have on hand)
4 tbsp Nutella

Ed. Note: You can also double this recipe and bake it in a 9×13 inch pan.

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Line 8×8 inch or 7×11 inch pan with baking parchment paper/tin foil or butter the pan.

2. Measure the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt into a small bowl and whisk to combine.

3. Stir the sugar into the melted butter. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in the vanilla. Add the dry ingredients and mix until combined.

4. Put the Nutella and peanut butter in a small bowl and microwave until runny (about 30 seconds). Fold into brownie mix. Barely mixing creates streaks of peanut butter/Nutella flavor, but you can completely mix for a more uniform taste.

5. Pour batter into pan and bake for 20-25 minutes, until top forms a crust. A toothpick should come out mostly clean, with maybe a few crumbs hanging on.

It's official...

Beaker is one of my favorite muppets. Animal and the Swedish chef are also awesome. Enjoy these meep-bork-RAH-tastic vids.

Er..for some reason I can't get the widescreen ones to play properly, so they're a bit off-center. You can still hear the awesome, though.

Ok, so I lied a little...

I know I said no posts till finals were over, but this was too good to not share. For study breaks, I treat myself to a little Cracked humor. I watched several episodes of Michael Swaim's Cracked TV and had to watch some of his sketch troupe's work. Here's one of my favorites so far by Those Aren't Muskets!



I just feel like Hollywood will take notice and take this as the basis for the next tech thriller.

*thud*

So, it's finals season. And that means no possibility for posts for the next few weeks. If I never post again, you will know that it's because I was slain by the mighty Analytical Chemistry monster.
This is the class where the average for the weekly quiz was around a 70 or so until we hit solubility. Then the average plummeted to a 55 for the online quiz and 3 out of 10 for the in-class quiz. And for some reason, the professor sees nothing wrong with this. May the deity of each person's choice help us all.
Peace and love (and video games if we're lucky...)

Farewell...time for a study break.