Brownie Cookies with Salted Caramel Filling

 Over the holidays, I made these delicious brownie cookies (YES, brownies and cookies all wrapped up in one bite!  Perfection!).  I found this recipe on pinterest (here is the pin).  They turned out really well.   I made some for us to snack on at home and some to take to our friends house for Christmas dinner.  They are rich, gooey, and delicious!  

Here is the recipe copied from the Bakers Royale website:

Brownie Cookie

12 oz. chocolate, chopped
3 tablespoons butter

2 eggs

⅔ cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

¼ cup all-purpose flour, sifted

¼ teaspoon baking powder, sifted

Salted Caramel Creme Filling (by Bakers Royale)

1 cup butter

2 cups confectioner sugar

1/4 teaspoon salted

1/4 cup caramel (Make sure caramel is cooled if making homemade. Clickhere for homemade caramel sauce recipe)

Instructions:

To make brownie cookies:

Place 7oz. of the chocolate and the butter in a saucepan over low heat and gently stir until melted and smooth. Set aside.

Place the eggs, sugar and vanilla in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment and beat for 15 minutes or until pale and creamy. Add in flour, baking powder, melted chocolate mixture, remaining 5 oz. of chocolate and mix to combine. Set aside to to stand for 10 minutes. Spoon 2 tablespoonful of the mixture, onto parchment lined bake sheet. Bake for about 8–10 minutes or until puffed and cracked. Allow to cool completely on trays.

To make caramel creme filling:

Place butter in a bowl and beat until creamed. Add in confectioner sugar and salt and beat until light combined. Add in caramel and beat until combined.

Assembly:

Spread a teaspoon and a half of caramel creme on underside of one brownie cookie and place a second brownie cookie bottom side down on top frosting.

The only thing I did differently was add a bit more caramel and salt to the filling and I sprinkled a bit of salt on top of the filling before putting the cookie on top.

Powdered Pigment

I hope you guys are enjoying the weekend.  I'm having a quiet, still-in-my-PJs kind of day:)  We ended up with free tickets to see Jim Gaffigan last night.  I'm really not a fan of going to see comedians.  Every other comedy show we have been to has been very cheesy/lame, but this one was actually pretty fun.  We definitely laughed a lot, so I will count it as a success! 

Last weekend, we celebrated Ben's birthday.  He is a whole 3 weeks older than me, so for the 3 weeks following his birthday, I like to really rub it in :)  It was especially fun last year when, for those 3 weeks, he was 'in his 30s' while I was still 'in my 20s'.  For his big day, we went out to dinner at Bollywood Theater, out for drinks at Bin 21, and then we made our way back home to enjoy some dessert I picked up from Papa Haydn.  It was a fun and delicious evening, plus I finally got to break out my Powdered Pigment Dress!

Dress:  Anthropologie Powdered Pigment Dress (Plenty by Tracey Reese)
Shoes:  All Black via Anthropologie

Double Scoop

I hope you all are having a fabulous long weekend!  Today was the perfect mixture of fun and relaxation with a little bit of productivity thrown in.  Ben's birthday was on Friday and we have been  in celebration mode since then.  We went out to pick up some dog food and ended up  making a pit stop for burgers and beer.....and ice cream:) 

Top:  J. Crew
Jeans:  AG Stevies via Anthropologie
Shoes:  Birkenstocks

Summer update

In case you didn't notice by my lack of outfit posts :), I don't feel very enthusiastic about summer clothes/fashion.  I don't like the heat very much, and once things reach a certain temperature, I usually just end up wearing whatever will keep me cool.   That usually translates to a simple dress and sandals.

I did recently get some new sandals to show off!  I have plantar fasciitis, so I have to be careful about what shoes I wear.  If it's a pair of shoes that I know I will be wearing for long periods of time, they have to be comfortable and have a lot of support, especially arch support.  I haven't had a lot of luck finding sandals that are structured/supportive.  I've always thought about birkenstocks because they are known for their comfort, and support, but the pair that I wore in high school always comes to mind:

 Yikes!  Not what I really think of as stylish these days:)  This season, I started hearing more and more about birkenstocks.  I wondered, could they actually be "in" this year?  I first saw a post over at Corporette (here) talking about the resurgence of birks.  I took note and started seeing them on other blogs.  That piqued my curiosity and I finally took a look at the styles Birkenstock has to offer right now.  I was pleasantly surprised.  Some of them are actually kind of cute!  Seeing them for sale at my favorite store sealed the deal (see the Gizeh on sale at anthro here).  I wanted a brighter color, so I turned to Amazon and found these for a great price (here): 

So far, I am loving them!



Here are a few recent outfits and some photos from my weekend    

Ice cream from Salt and Straw - one of the best things in Portland right now.  The honey balsamic strawberry with black pepper is FABULOUS.

One of my go-to summer dresses and my freshly pedicured toes

Ben and I went out for lunch and dinner yesterday.  It was too hot to cook!  We had these delicious oysters at the Parish.

Berries!  We went berry picking today.  Our adventure did not last long because it was really, really hot!

Cold apple cider from Ned Ludd

Some beauty from our front yard

A gift from my wonderful husband:)  I LOVE it!

Instagram: dinner date, tuileries, and fall

UPDATE: After getting a few complaints that people were not able to comment on my posts, I have decided to switch over to Disqus (from IntenseDebate). Here's hoping the problem is fixed! If you have any advice/suggestions about this kind of thing (technical problems with commenting systems), please let me know. If you have problems commenting, please email me (lovelyapidea@gmail.com). Thanks!

Here are a few of my instagram photos from the past week or so:

Ben and I went out to Andina for dinner recently. They have the best cocktails! My favorite is the Sacsayhuman (habanero pepper vodka shaken with pureed passionfruit and cane sugar,
served up with a sugar rim and a cilantro leaf garnish). It is perfection!

We get the grilled octopus every time we visit Andina. It is delicious!

Since we were celebrating our 2-week anniversary, we had to get dessert:) This is the mousse de valle y selva.

Oh how I love fall.

I spent hours making this pull-apart pumpkin bread. Yep, it was worth it.

Shoes make me happy!

My OOTD from today. I saw this dress/cardi combo when the dress first came out (on Molly, I believe). I've had it in my head ever since. Today was the day to make it happen!

Pizza on the grill

Ben and I decided to have grilled pizza last night. We tried this once before (on christmas day actually, when we had some friends over). The pizza was excellent the first time around and even better last night!


Here is the homemade dough. Ben started it a few hours before dinner time so that it would have time to properly rise, etc. He has been on a bread baking spree lately, filling our house with lovely smells almost every day!


Here is the huge mess I made in the kitchen while cutting up all of the toppings!


On the grill!


After grilling one side, the toppings go on, and then back out to the grill they go. Yes, we made a TON of pizzas. The dough recipe Ben used ended up making 7 of these smallish pizzas. We froze the leftovers so we can just pop one in the oven for a quick lunch or for when we are short on time for dinner.

Grilled to perfection


Finished product - So delicious!