Tag Archives: red velvet

Red Velvet Oreo Brownies

Happy Valentine’s Day! The kids have a bake sale at school today and last night I finished up some Red Velvet Oreo Brownies for the sale. My passion for red velvet only began a year or so ago. I had tasted it occasionally before, but it didn’t become such an obsession until I tasted Piazza De Nardi’s Red Velvet Cake ~ Oh my goodness! Since then, I have tried out recipes now and again, but a Valentine’s Day bake sale seemed like the perfect opportunity to try out a few more red velvet recipes. Earlier in the week, I made Red Velvet Crinkle Cookies. They are absolutely delicious and the recipe is a definite keeper.

Well, these Red Velvet Oreo Brownies are incredibly good as well and the three layers make them look so pretty!  I found the recipe on Sally’s Baking Addiction, so all of the credit goes to her. She mentions at the end of her post, that she adapted the Red velvet layer from Sunny Anderson at the Food Network.

Red Velvet Oreo Brownies:

Ingredients:

BROWNIES

  • 2 large eggs
  • 1/2 cup butter
  • 1 cup granulated sugar
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 1/8 teaspoon salt
  • 1 Tablespoon red food colouring
  • 3/4 teaspoon white vinegar
  • 3/4 cup all-purpose flour

COOKIES ‘N CREAM FROSTING

(I adapted this slightly as I thought it would be criminal not to include a bit of cream cheese.)

  • 1/4 cup butter (at room temperature)
  • 1/4 cup cream cheese, softened
  • 1 and 3/4 cups icing sugar
  • 2-3 Tablespoons whipping cream 
  • 6 Oreos, crushed (plus 3 extra to break on top of ganache)

CHOCOLATE GANACHE

  • 4 ounces semi-sweet chocolate (not chocolate chips)
  • 1/2 cup whipping cream 
  • 2 Tablespoons butter, softened to room temperature

Directions:

  • Set out the butter to soften.
  • Preheat the oven to 350. Foil line an 8×8 baking pan with extra foil extending over the sides, so that you can easily lift the cook brownies out of the pan after. Set aside or freeze and complete the last two layers closer to the day you need the brownies.

Brownies:

Beat the eggs in a small bowl.  Set aside. Melt the butter in a large microwave safe bowl. Add each of the following ingredients one at a time in the suggested order, stirring between each addition: sugar, vanilla, cocoa powder, salt, food colouring, and vinegar. Whisk in the eggs, then fold in the flour until completely incorporated, but do not over mix. Pour the brownie batter into prepared baking pan. Bake the brownies for 22-24 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out mostly clean, with a few small moist crumbs. Allow the brownies to cool at room temperature for 30 minutes, then transfer to the refrigerator to cool completely.

Oreo Frosting:

Whip the butter and cream cheese together with an electric mixer, until creamy.  Add the icing sugar and 2 Tbsp cream, beating on medium until creamy.  I found that 2 Tbsp of cream was enough, but if needed you can add 1 more Tbsp cream. You don’t want the frosting to be too thin, so be careful not to add to much cream ~ keep the icing thick, but spreadable.  Fold in the crushed Oreos. Lift the cooled brownies out of the pan, remove the foil and spread them with the frosting. Stick them into the refrigerator as your prepare the ganache. You want the frosting to slightly chill on the brownies.

Ganache: 

Break the chocolate into small pieces and place in a small bowl. Heat the heavy cream until boiling, either in the microwave or on the stove top. (I microwaved mine.) Pour boiling cream over the chocolate and stir until the chocolate is melted and smooth. Cut in the butter, one small piece at a time, and stir until smooth. Spread over frosted brownies. Add the additional crushed Oreos to the top and then chill for at least 30 minutes before cutting.

  • Cut the brownies into squares and then cover them tightly in a sealed container. They can keep chilled in the refrigerator for up to 5 days.
  • If you double this recipe, use a 9×13 baking pan and bake for 35-45 minutes at 350.

These turned out really good. I was sad to package them up to send to the bake sale. I am sure the original frosting recipe would be very good as well, but I love the cream cheese flavour with red velvet. These are a must try!

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You Can’t Always Judge a Cookie By Its Dough

As soon as I saw these posted on Gonna Want Seconds, I knew I was going to want to give these cookies a try. I have always loved the simple look of crinkle cookies sprinkled with icing sugar and the contrast between the dark cookie and white sugar makes them look so pretty without much effort. With Valentine’s Day around the corner, I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to try a new recipe or two.

I have never made these before, so I stuck to the recipe and was thrilled with the outcome. I wouldn’t change a thing, but did make my cookie balls smaller than suggested and thus my yield was higher. Thanks to Kathleen, we now how a red velvet recipe to add to our cache of favourite cookie recipes.

Red Velvet Crinkle Cookies

This recipe makes 2 to 4 dozen. Kathleen suggests using a 1 1/ Tablespoon cookie scoop and I don’t have one. I am not sure how big of a ball that makes, but with her suggested ball size the yield is 2 dozen cookies. I made my balls about 1″ in size and ended up with 55 cookies. Now, generally speaking I am not very good at determining the yield of a recipe because it is hard to account for the multiple cookies I ate while still in “dough” form. I generally eat very few cookies once their cooked, I am really more interested in the dough. Having said that, I know that this recipe would have made exactly 56 cookies had I not eaten one single solitary raw cookie ball. In fact, I was a little leery as too how these babies were going to turn out as I did not like the dough at all. However, I carried on and cooked them up and to my surprise they were delicious. I have not done much “red velvet” baking and so I don’t really have much experience with how the batter/dough should taste, but less this be a lesson to us all ~ “You can’t always judge a cookie by its dough!”

Here is Kathleen’s recipe which was originally found on The Little Kitchen:

Ingredients:

2 1/4 cups flour
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt (I omitted this because I used salted butter)
1/2 cup softened unsalted butter
2 ounces cream cheese (1/4 cup)
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons red food colouring
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup powdered sugar (icing sugar)

Instructions:

1. Place flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt in a mixing bowl. Use a whisk to combine the dry ingredients and then set this mixture aside.

2. In a separate bowl, cream the butter and cream cheese with an electric mixer. Add the sugar and mix  for an additional 1 to 2 minutes. Add the eggs, red food colouring and vanilla. Mix well. Finally, slowly add the dry ingredients and mix to combine using a spatula. Refrigerate the mixed cookie dough for 4 hours in plastic wrap or a sealed container.

3.Heat oven to 350°F. Roll the chilled dough into 1″ balls and then roll each ball in powdered sugar until it’s completely covered. Bake on a parchment paper covered cookie sheet for about 9 to 10 minutes. Carefully pull the parchment paper from baking sheet and transfer the paper and cookies onto wire cooling racks. Allow the cookies to cool completely before storing in an airtight container.

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