Dark Chocolate Chili Brownies

TGIF people. What you up to this weekend?

My friend Elisa invited me to 14º Veganique/Piquenique on Sunday, a vegan picnic that's taking place in Boa Vista which is up in the mountains in Rio. It's also where Hub and I had that epic raw dinner. Everyone has to bring a vegan dish and originally I wanted to make classic chocolate brownies, but then I had a dream about Mexican chili chocolate. I woke up inspired to make dark chocolate chili brownies! I did a test batch today and they were awesome. 

my working station

Ingredients

• 2 cups whole wheat spelt flour
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 -1/2 tsp cayenne pepper, depending on how much heat you like
• 1/2 tsp crushed red chili flakes
• 1 tsp chunky sea salt
• 1 cup sweetened soy milk
• 1 cup grapeseed oil
• handful of walnuts
• handful of roughly chopped extra dark vegan chocolate, 70% or higher

Preheat your oven to 350F/175C. Line a 9x11 inch baking tray with parchment paper and grease it with a little bit of oil. In a large bowl add the soy milk and oil and set aside. In a separate bowl combine the cocoa powder, sugar and chili then gradually mix this into your wet ingredients. The mixture should be a thick chocolaty mix. 

Now combine the spelt flour, baking powder and sea salt in a bowl and gradually mix this into your chocolaty mix using a wooden spoon or spatula.

All you want to do is combine the ingredients well. Don't over beat your batter. 

The batter should be thick, sticky and heavy. Have a taste of your batter and it should be rich, subtly sweet with a hint of chili and sea salt. Mix in your walnuts and dark chocolate chips then spread evenly into your baking dish. 

Bake for 20 minutes and voila! The brownies have a dark intense chocolaty flavor and then a mild fiery kick. So delicious!

Helpful links for this post:

Which do you prefer cakey, chewy or fudgy brownies?

3 ways to make chocolate brownies

My recipe was modified from this yummy recipe

Peanut Butter Lovin'

Photo Courtesy by daveywaveyfitness.com

I love peanut butter. That's probably an understatement. And I've been waiting with anticipation to share my love for the spread and all things edibly linked for over a week now.
So I read about Bake or Break on Cup of Jo's Sweet Tooth post and I thought I'd sift through the site and google some tasty desserts with peanut butter. Let me tell you, there are a plenty.

Also Christmas is coming up and I told my mom that I would make the dessert. She's not crazy about peanut butter....but I can make two. Besides who says I have to share? One for the family and peanut butter for me.

Peanut Butter Pie
I love really rich desserts, the richer, the better in my book. And this looks like a slice would fill me up. I'd still make room for two.

Peanut Butter Tart

I originally saw this on Bake or Break who gives some pointers if you want to attempt the dish. She also links to the originally recipe by Martha Stewart. It's no bake and is a layer of chocolate ganache topped with whipped pb cream cheese goodness.

Peanut Butter Torte

Um...yeah, I found this on One Perfect Bite. This is the type of treat that I would have as dinner with Twilight (guilty pleasure) playing, on a night when the Hub was playing football.

 

Peanut Butter Cookies
These are actually filled with caramel, but I can see myself putting more pb inside or dark chocolate.

Brownie Peanut Butter Cups
Yes please! All I would need is a glass of soya milk to wash these bad boys down. These are from a cute blog The Girl Who Ate Everything.

As Master Chef's Gregg Wallace would say, it's the sort of thing I'd dip my head in!

Expat's Thanksgiving: Dessert Anyone?

We topped off our glorious meal with four DELISH pies. My sister-in-law went to the bakery that delivers some of the best cupcakes in London - Hummingbird. They served up pumpkin pie, classic and all American.

Hummingbird's Pumpkin Pie

I begged my friend to re-make Nigella's Chocolate Peanut Butter Cheesecake (I can devour a peanut butter jar in a week, so I would say I like PB a lot). I love the bits of whole crunchy peanuts that get left behind in the digestive crust. Digestives are yummy cookies that you just can't find in the States.

By far though, the best dessert was Pecan Pie by @Nigella_Larsen. My dear friend even made the pastry dough herself and it was perfection. We finished it for breakfast the next day.

Courtesy of bakingpowders.blogspot.com

And last but certainly  not least was my friend's homemade apple pie. Tasted great warm with vanilla ice cream and cold the next day. I picked at the laces all day long.



Courtesy of homemadeapplepie.net

 Thanksgiving is just now two days away...I wish I was going home tomorrow in time to watch my mom cook and see the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. I'm already getting emails for Black Friday sales. Sigh*

Any who, here are some great links I found that I thought I'd share.

If you are looking for inspirational (and somewhat challenging dishes) then check out Goop's newsletter Thanksgiving Low Down.

If I hadn't blown all my cash on my own soiree, I'd drag the Hub to Villandry for their French take on Thanksgiving Dinner, there serving a twice baked cheese souffle to start. YUM.

Or, I'd love to check out the Savoy Grill's maple-roast turkey with cornbread stuffing. Two more reasons really, one I want to know what Gordon Ramsey's interpretation of cornbread is. Londoners don't know cornbread like WE know cornbread and two the Beaufort Bar is heaven. It's like old Hollywood glamour in there.

We created a dried flower/halved pear in glass center piece, but I loved this floral pumpkin vase idea.

Happy Thanksgiving