If You Give a Girl a Cookie's blog

Lately, I’ve become more and more discouraged when it comes to yeast baking. I used to be all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed about it, making notes as I went and trying to figure out what went wrong so I could tweak it for next time. But after multiple flops, I was waving my little white flag of surrender from behind the kitchen island, covered in flour and despair.

At the risk of sounding incredibly un-American, I'm not a huge fan of apple pie. Sure, it's got it's high points: everyone likes it, it imparts feelings of patriotism when we see it nestled next to a bowl of potato salad on a fourth of July picnic spread, and apples + cinnamon will always equal true love, but I find it to be a bit overplayed. And I feel like I can't get away from it - and not just the pie. You've got apple crumbles, apple crisp, apple turnovers, apple tarts, apple dumplings - all of which are still apple pie as far as I'm concerned, just with a different shape. Call me cynical, but I just don't believe the hype.

After much searching, trial, error, weeping, and gnashing of teeth, I gave up completely. I stuck by my trusty banana bread recipes and thought that perhaps this would be as good as it gets. I stuck out my bottom limp, pouted to anyone who would listen about my banana woes, and stuffed banana muffins into my cheeks while the tears streamed down. But as my mother always says, when you least expect it - expect it.

And really, it couldn't be easier. You whisk together a bit of egg white that acts as a binder for the aromatic goodness to come. Then you add a bit of soft brown sugar for sweetness and a potpourri of spices and toss the pecans in. Turning them about ever so gently, the goo will pull between the pecans like cinnamon cobwebs and off it goes into the oven where it will permeate your entire house with a fragrance that makes you wish St. Nick was just around the corner.

We've had pineapple upside down cake together once before, and I don't want you to feel like I am playing mind games with you by offering a second one. The methods are completely different, save the upside down part, with one cake cooking the fruit in a brown sugar syrup before topping it with a runny, pourable cake batter, then the other cake I am giving you today. The latter of the two is far superior - a schmear of honeyed sugar goo slicks the bottom of the pan, followed by fresh pineapple in it's raw state and a thick, creamy cake batter to fill in the nooks and crannies.

Putting these into the Brownie category is really selling them short - they are so, so much more than that. The brownie is simply the base - a chocolaty, fudgy, chewy vessel for carrying an inch-thick layer of minted buttercream to your mouth, held down by a snap of bittersweet chocolate that cracks under your teeth with each bite. They are quite sweet in the best way, and you'll do well to keep a cup of coffee in one hand and a brownie in the other. Also, the liquor alone isn't enough to give the buttercream its minty boost, so you'll need a bit of peppermint extract. I made the mistake of buying mint extract which turned out of be a combination of spearmint and peppermint, and the very smell of spearmint makes me gag worse than strep-test. Do as I say, not as I do.