Befuddle your sweetheart with some brilliant brownies

(See just the recipe here)

Love and courtship might be a little bit harder in a time of pandemics and lockdowns, but if you’re trying to woo someone with a sweet tooth or offer a home-made delight, instead of the usual package of chocolates or flowers, I have the perfect recipe.

These brownies befuddled by German friends. They carry an extra amount of cocoa powder.

It’s brownies.

I know you’re probably thinking, brownies? I’ve done that before, or I buy the box in the store.

Well, that might well be true, but I have found these befuddling brownies are easy, cross cultures and are sure to win a few hearts.

I have always used brownies as a way to win hearts and minds. New workplaces, new sources, new groups, new classes and new love interests. They’re great for winning all kinds of positive attention, romantic or otherwise.

When I moved to Germany to become an au pair, I was in for a surprise. Brownies did not exist. Germans are not big on sweets – many American staples I baked were totally new to my guest family, including cookies, crumbles and crisps.

Even some of the language we use to describe brownies, mainly fudge, did not exist, because fudge just isn’t a thing. For the record, I’m firmly in the fudge camp, which also means a few minutes less in the oven.

Germany did have the basic needed ingredients, although instead of chocolate chips, I had to buy chocolate bars and chop them by hand. When I did make them, my guest family, my language class, my friends, everyone was befuddled by this thing they had never had before.

Baking the brownies

When it comes to making the brownies, there are three problems with the run-of-the-mill brownies, and brownie recipes – overuse of sugar, underuse of dark chocolate and a lack of dark cocoa powder.

I also differ from some recipes in my use of oil instead of butter. After some taste testing, I found I could not really discern any difference between the two. As for flour, I use whole wheat. I find it gives a coarser texture and a slightly nuttier flavor.

If there is one thing you take away from my brownie recipe, it should be the use of normal and dark cocoa powder, and the increased amounts of each in the brownies. This gives them a much richer taste that pairs well with an increased amount of dark/bittersweet chocolate. When I learned dark cocoa powder was a thing, I initially tried the brownies with just it but found a combination between the two came with the best taste. Either way, the amount of cocoa powder in this recipe should be higher than many comparable ones.

There is one key step I have learned the hard way: thoroughly mix the cocoa powder and flour before adding it to the mixture of oil and eggs. Otherwise, they both tend to clump.

Finally, I suggest using parchment paper to line the baking dish instead of greasing it. I always find it much easier to remove than trying to cut into brownies in a pan.

Print Recipe

Befuddling brownies

These brownies are especially rich, thanks to the use of dark cocoa powder.
Prep Time20 minutes
Cook Time38 minutes
Total Time58 minutes
Course: Dessert
Cuisine: American
Keyword: brownies
Servings: 1 9x13 pan
Author: Wheeler Cowperthwaite

Ingredients

  • 1 cup oil vegetable, canola, etc., or butter
  • 1 1/2 cups sugar
  • 1+ tbsp vanilla extract
  • 4 eggs
  • 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
  • 1 cup dark cocoa powder
  • 1/3 cup lighter cocoa powder
  • 1 1/2 cups chocolate chips or morsels

Instructions

  • Preheat oven to 350 degrees
  • Combine oil, sugar, vanilla extract. Beat the eggs and then add them to the oil-sugar mix. Mix until combined.
  • Mix the cocoa powders and flour until well combined.
  • Add cocoa powder/flour mixture to the oil-sugar combination and mix until well mixed with no remaining clumps.
  • Mix in the chocolate chips.
  • Line a 9”x13” baking dish with parchment paper or grease the baking dish.
  • Pour the mixture onto the parchment paper and bake for 32-38 minutes. Brownies should not jiggle too much. Let cool. Baking for less time will result in a more fudgy consistency, while baking longer will result in a cakey consistency.

German-slaying oatmeal chocolate chip cookies

There’s one recipe that is passed down through the generations in my family: oatmeal chocolate chip cookies.

The baked oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, also called the German Slayers.

(See just the recipe here)

It’s such a simple recipe, and yet, it creates the most delicious cookies, but after years of baking them in a multitude of states, jobs, ovens and countries, I have found a few tips, tricks and tweaks to make them just a little bit better.

There is one caveat with my cookies. They’re not pretty or picture perfect. They are delicious.

I first started perfecting the recipe when I lived as an au pair in Dresden, Germany. While my German guest family had heard of cookies, nothing like the American confection existed.

The bakeries had dark breads, black breads, tart breads, thick breads, thicker breads and nut breads but no cookies. Nothing even came close.

These oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, which I lovingly refer to as German slayers, took them by storm.

In addition to being an au pair, I was also going to a language class every day with students from around the globe, including Europe, Asia and the middle east. To most of them, the cookies were a novel experience.

Baking these cookies in Germany was a lot harder than should be expected. Brown sugar didn’t exist so I had to substitute molasses, since there were no chocolate chips I had to cut them off of large blocks of baker’s chocolate and imitation vanilla came in tiny vials.

Rolled-out cookie before baking. Quarter for size comparison.

White flour, too, was complicated. Germans have plenty of flour but plain white flour is not one of them. Eventually, I shifted my flour use to whole wheat, which is the first change I’ve kept.

Whole wheat flour gives the cookies a little more texture and a slight nutty flavor. Sometimes it’s desirable and sometimes it’s not.

Next, I experimented with spices to match the cookies to the hot mulled wine served in winter called Glühwein. That included ground cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and other spices. In this recipe, I’ve listed them as optional. After I came back stateside, I started to add shredded coconut.

Next on the big list of tips is to freeze the batter before baking it. This helps the cookies retain a rounder shape when baked. When taking them out of the oven, they may seem a little undercooked, but once they cook down, they will be nice and soft. I’m also a full convert to the use of parchment paper on baking pans. I don’t know what I would do without it.

Last, I stress that the flour and baking soda should be mixed together before being added to the rest of the batter. That makes mixing everything evenly that much easier.

Guten Apetit!

Print Recipe

German-slaying oatmeal chocolate chip cookies

These oatmeal chocolate chip cookies use a little less sugar, white or whole wheat flour and are delicious.
Prep Time30 minutes
Cook Time8 minutes
Time in freezer/refrigerator1 hour
Total Time1 hour 48 minutes
Course: Dessert
Cuisine: American
Keyword: cookies
Servings: 25 cookies
Author: Wheeler Cowperthwaite
Cost: $5

Equipment

  • baking sheet
  • large mixing bowl

Ingredients

  • 2 sticks unsalted butter 250 grams
  • 1 cup brown sugar (firmly packed) 232 grams
  • 1/2 cup granulated sugar 112 grams
  • 1+ tsp vanilla
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour 220 grams
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 3+ cups oatmeal 265 grams
  • 1 cup chocolate chips 200 grams

Optional ingredients (spices)

  • 1 tsp Ground cinnamon
  • 1 tsp ground nutmeg
  • 1 tsp ground ginger
  • 1 cup shredded coconut add with oats

Instructions

  • In a medium bowl, mix the butter and sugars together until creamy. Add the eggs and vanilla and mix together.
  • In a separate mixing bowl, combine the whole-wheat flour, baking soda and optional spices until well mixed. Add to the bowl of creamed sugars and mix well.
  • Add the oats and, if using, shredded coconut to the bowl and mix well. Add the chocolate chips and stir in until combined.
  • Refrigerate or freeze for 1 to 8 hours.
  • Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
  • Line baking sheet with parchment paper.
  • Using a spoon, or hands, make roundish balls of dough, about the size of a half-dollar, and put them on the baking sheet, spaced about an inch and a half apart.
  • Bake for eight to 10 minutes.

Notes

Use parchment paper instead of greasing the cookie sheet.
Spices will make the cookies taste . . . spicy.
Whole-wheat flour gives the cookies a slightly nutty flavor and more texture, but white flour can be used as well.
Refrigerating or freezing the dough keeps the cookies from flattening in the oven.
The more oats, the better!

Repost: Irish Soda Bread from Sept. 1, 2009

In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, quickly coming up, I’m reposting an Irish soda bread blog post, and recipe, from Sept. 1, 2009 when I was living in Germany as an au pair. Here’s the original.

I realize that it’s a little bit disjointed at the end. So it goes.

You should be pairing that soda bread with some slow cooker corned beef, potatoes and cabbage made with beer, cider and mustard. Trust me. It’s really good.

Recipe: Irish Soda Bread

I could make excuses or give reasons for not having written about vacation yet, but I won’t. Instead, I’m going to share a recipe for Irish Soda Bread that I made last week. Before I give the recipe or subsequent notes on it, I’ll rap about it because I personally love recipes with a story behind them — a recipe with no notes, no story, no nothin’ is not only less appealing to me but also dry. I should say, the whole reason I made the soda bread was a beef stew which I’ll hopefully make soon again, takes pictures of and write up. A glut from two grills the last two nights engendered the beef stew, which spawned the soda bread.

Out of the oven, on a baking sheet.

I think sourdough bread goes better with beef stew, or lamb stew, or pork stew rather than soda bread, but this may just be nostalgia speaking. The soda bread goes well with the beef stew, is semi-authentic and as a plus the bread is great – it merits repeating – with a little butter and good honey.

I picked up the recipe from allrecipes.com (credit to “MP Welty”) and changed it for my tastes. My tastes at the moment are for whole wheat goodness wherever and whenever possible. So far this has been an apple crisp, the soda bread and pancakes.

Below the recipe will be given in both metric and imperial, but small measurements will be given exclusively in imperial. I personally use metric because I’m in Germany and actually I found measuring by grams to be a bit easier than the normal packing and sifting ways. However, I’ve found with American recipes, this difference can be a bit of a problem.

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