TWD--Tribute-to-Katharine-Hepburn Brownies

This week's Tuesday's With Dorie recipe was chosen by this really cool girl, Lisa, who is not even a TWD blogger.  What?  Lisa recently won a contest for coming up with a new logo for Tuesday's With Dorie.  Check it out.

Lisa has a really funny blog called Surviving Oz.  She is an American living in Australia and she loves us TWD bloggers.  Since she won, she got to pick this week's recipe and you've got to 1--go check out her blog and 2-see her posting about these brownies (and GET the recipe!).  She never bakes from scratch and her brownies look de-lish and her write up is a great read! 

THIS might be my favorite TWD recipe yet.  Why?  The biggest reason is because it is SO simple to make.  But heck, they are also brownies and they are delicious--no matter how you slice it! ;)  I have no idea if Dorie hit it just right with making these brownies just like Katharine Hepburn's, but I do know that Dorie has come up with a great brownie and if the key was what Katharine always said--"don't put too much flour in your brownies", then this is it.  I'm not ashamed to say that I made these brownies four different times over the last week. 

We like them!  I'm excited and happy that "we", as in all of my family, like these.  No cake, no frosting to fret about and I've shared them with some friends and neighbors all of whom raved about what a good brownie they are.    Somebody stop me!  jk

So here's the deal.  The first time I made them, I added the nuts, walnuts that is, and semi sweet chocolate chips.  (Note--all four times that I made these I left out the cinnamon and the coffee--don't care for either one in my brownies!)  I have to say, the nutty ones are my favorite.  I just really think a brownie with nuts is much better than one without!

Pure brownie perfection.

We had to do something fun with the brownies.  So they became the base for Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Fro Yo Sundaes.  (The same concoction I made the Andes Mint Fro Yo from on a previous post.)

Good! 

The chocolate chip cookie dough is from The Perfect Scoop.  You can get the recipe here, among other places, I'm sure.

Next, a few days later, I made the brownies sans nuts because one of my sons thinks he doesn't like nuts in brownies. ;)  He loves them like this---

Just extra chocolate.  Yum.  (But missing nuts!)  Um, these still got eaten right up!

These got a dousing of the peanut butter ice cream I recently posted about with some hot fudge on top. 

(Yes, we've been eating a lot of ice cream 'round here lately!)

Next up I went for the classic peanut butter/chocolate combo.  Whipped up the brownies--did I mention how easy they are?  Melt butter in pot on stove, while it's melting, add cocoa (I never sifted it, I'm lazy).  Let sit three minutes.  Whisk in eggs, then sugar, vanilla and that little bit of flour and salt.  That's it.  Add mix-ins.  Put in 8x8 pan (I always lined it with foil and lightly sprayed it with cooking spray--once baked and slightly cooled, cool to room temperature and chill in fridge for the best, easiest cutting.)  My 8x8 pan is a darker metal, so every time I baked these, I baked them at 300 degrees instead of 325 degrees.  I baked them for 25 minutes at which point they passed the toothpick test and looked done.  They were perfect every time.

With these peanut butter ones, I chopped up 8 Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and added them to the batter.

If you're the peanut butter/chocolate fan, you'll love these like this!  The kids ate them up and the neighbors loved them. 

And just because three times just wasn't enough for these, I made them again yesterday.  You know the drill, melt butter, add cocoa, eggs, sugar, vanilla, flour and salt.  Then add 3/4 cup of these--(still cleaning out the baking cupboard here).  I have been known to love the Junior Mints and York Peppermint Patties in my lifetime.  And they were terrific in the these brownies.  And just to be different, I baked them in an 8 inch round cake pan.

I added a Hershey's Kisses Mint Truffle to the top of each brownie wedge as well.

If you like the minty brownies--you'll want to whip these up. 

Puhleeeaassseee, go see other versions of these brownies by visiting the Tuesday's With Dorie blog and checking out the list of other baking bloggers.  I can't wait to see the other's brownies!

By the way, he's feeling much better, but his eyes don't look so good! ;)