Do you love him Loretta?: I Bake therefore I am...

I used to love to bake. Well at first I didn't bake. Then when we discovered my oldest son was anaphylactic to tree nuts and peanuts, I started baking everything! He's 11 and there wasn't too many 'peanut tree nut free/safe' baked good manufacturers out back then. Out of necessity, I learned how to bake crackers, pizza, cookies, cakes, pies…you get it. I just draw the line on frying donuts. Some things just aren't worth the smell and mess.

Then my oldest baby (all of 28 years old) moved back home from San Francisco and she took over the baking. She bakes because she is a bit down that she had to move back home to 'the mother ship' and baking is truly therapy for her. The plus of moving back home? I have a double Viking oven (Oh yes baby!).

However, how much baked goods does one family need? Also, I hear eating too much good stuff isn't good for you! Go figure. I mean it, go figure as in figure goes right out the door!

Anyway, this week we baked two recipes:

One for the adults - SALTED CARAMEL BROWNIES from the BAKED Bakery cookbook, and

One for the kids - Candy Sushi (ok, this isn't technically baking, I know). But, as this was technically for a BAKE SALE so it kind of counts as baking, right? It didn't come out of a box so don't judge me! Also, let me say, BIG HIT AT SCHOOL!!! I would have made them bigger if I knew the school was going to charge $2 each for them!!! INSANE! Not a rice krispee crumb left!

So, here are the recipes:

SWEET AND SALTY BROWNIES (Adapted from BAKED EXPLORATIONS)

caramel filling:

1 cup sugar
2 tbsp light corn syrup
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup sour cream

Preheat oven to 350* F.

In a medium saucepan, combine sugar and corn syrup with 1/4 cup of water, stirring carefully so you don't splash the sides of pan.

Cook over high heat until an instant read thermometer reads 350* F. pr into; the mixture is dark amber in colour (6-8 minutes).

Remove from heat, and slowly add the cream (Stand back with an umbrella! It will bubble up!). Now add the fleur de sel. Whisk in the sour cream. Set aside to cool.

Brownie:

1 1/4 cup AP flour
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp dark unsweetened cocoa powder
11 oz quality dark chocolate (60-72%) coarsely chopped (I only use Bakers Chocolate, as its peanut free)
1 cup unsalted butter cut into 1" cubes
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
5 large eggs (room temp)
2 tsp vanilla

Butter sides and bottom of a glass or light coloured metal 9x13 pan. Line bottom with parchment paper and butter this as well.

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, salt and cocoa (I always sift this kind of dry ingredient mix to help integrate separate ingredients better).

Place chocolate and butter into a metal bowl, and set over a pan of simmering water. Stir until chocolate and butter melted and combined fully. Turn off heat but leave the bowl on the hot water pan. Now add both sugars to this. Whisk until completely combined and remove from pan. Let mixture come to room temperature.

Add each egg one at a time, mixing between eggs until just combined. Add vanilla. Don't over mix.

Sprinkle the flour mixture over the chocolate. Using a spatula, fold the dry into the wet until there is only a minimal amount of the flour residue visible.

Pour half of the brownie mixture into the pan and smooth the top. Drizzle about 3/4 cup of the caramel over the brownie, doing so in a zig zag fashion. DO NOT LET CARAMEL TOUCH EDGES OF PAN AS IT WILL BURN BABY BURN! Spread caramel as evenly as possible with a spatula.

Scoop teaspoon fulls of the remaining brownie mix over the caramel layer. Smooth gently to cover caramel.

Bake for 30 minutes, rotating pan halfway through baking time. Check to make sure brownies completely done by sticking a toothpick in the centre. A few moist crumbs should be on the toothpick, but it shouldn't be batter-y.

Remove from oven. Sprinkle with some coarse sugar and a SMALL PINCH of fleur de sel. Cool completely before cutting and serving.

ENJOY!!!

Now for the fun stuff!!!!

CANDY SUSHI:

I found this recipe online a while ago, and I book marked it to use at the next bake sale. I used the recipe from the Matsuri Curacao blog. Its such a good, complete recipe with instructions, that I felt there was no need to rewrite it. So, here is the link to the recipe:

Candy Sushi Instructions

My only substitutions were, I used filled twizzlers instead of gummy worms. So easy and so cute!!!! Big hit at school, All 80 pieces I brought in sold out right away. Like I said earlier, if I knew they were going to charge $2 a pop I would have cut the Rainbow rolls thicker, and made the Nigiri sushi a bit bigger too!

We also mixed a smudge (very technical term) of green gel food colouring with white fondant and mushed it (another technical term) onto chinese soup porcelain spoons to resemble wasabi. We placed a spoon of 'wasabi' onto each platter.