Good Housekeeping - Good Housekeeping Brownies!: Favorite Recipes for Brownies, Blondies & Bar Cookies

Good Housekeeping
BROWNIES!

FAVORITE RECIPES FOR BROWNIES,
BLONDIES & BAR COOKIES

Good Housekeeping
BROWNIES!

FAVORITE RECIPES FOR BROWNIES,
BLONDIES & BAR COOKIES

HEARST BOOKS
A division of Sterling Publishing Co., Inc.
New York/London
www.sterlingpublishing.com

CONTENTS

BLONDIES, SPICE BARS &
SHORTBREAD

Who can resist a brownie? These easy, one-batch bars are as American a tradition as apple pie and can be made in a fraction of the time. Whether you need a double batch for a bake sale or rich trufflelike confections for a fancy party, weve got a recipe for you. If youre in a real time crunch, weve converted some of our favorite from-scratch recipes to easy versions made from a brownie mix plus a few stir-ins. All of the recipes have been triple-tested in the GoodHousekeeping Test Kitchens by our staff, so theyre guaranteed to be good.

In Brownies! you will find goodies for all tastes. Yes, we know there are actually people who do not like chocolate. Our book of bars has lots of other luscious options, Fresh Lemon Bars, Cherry Cheesecake Triangles, and Caramel Pecan Bars among them. You can satisfy any craving with just a few supermarket ingredients, many of which are already in your pantry.

In addition to fabulous recipes, Brownies! will help you to become a better baker through general baking advice as well as tips specific to making, decorating, and storing your bar cookies. I love to individually wrap a few bars and freeze them for impromptu teatime treats.

Whatever the occasion, youll find crowd-pleaserschocolate, and notin this collection of Good Housekeepings most popular brownies and bars, including irresistible new favorites. I hope Brownies! satisfies your sweet tooth and will become a well-used addition to your cookbook library.

SUSAN WESTMORELAND
Food Director, Good Housekeeping

There are many reasons why brownies, blondies, and other bar cookies are so popular, the main one being that they are scrumptious. They are also so easy to whip up that even a beginning baker can get great results, and, unlike many other desserts, they require a minimum of ingredients, all readily available. Best of all, they take a relatively short time to prepare.

From simple to sophisticated, there is a bar cookie to suit every taste. Whether you are preparing something to bring to a school bake sale, to pack into the kids lunch boxes, to ship overseas to a loved one, or to serve as a finale to dinner, youll find a recipe here to fill the bill.

To make the process even easier and quicker, weve adapted some of our favorite recipes to take advantage of the excellent mixes now available in supermarkets. These recipes will be indicated by a shaded box just like this one (see, for example, Easy German Chocolate Brownies, page 43). We tested these recipes using a variety of store and brand names. Any plain brownie mix between 19 and 22 ounces, for a 13" by 9" baking pan, will work. Just be sure that the mix is either fudgy or chewy style and does not have any add-ins, such as nuts or caramel.

Getting Started

Before you begin, you should become familiar with some basic procedures that will help you get perfect results.

Read the recipe all the way through before you start. Butter may have to be softened, nuts may need to be toasted, chocolate may need to be melted.

Make sure that ingredients are at room temperature (68 to 70F) unless otherwise indicated.

Dont use a substitute for any ingredient unless one is specifically offered in the recipe.

Measure everything! In baking, adding a pinch of this and a dash of that can lead to disaster. Recipes for baked goods are exact formulas, and what you addor subtractcan adversely affect the taste and texture of the final product.

Use dry measuring cups to measure dry ingredients and liquid measuring cups to measure liquid ingredients; the two kinds of cups dont hold the same volume. How you measure flour is particularly important: Stir the flour in the canister, then spoon it into a dry-cup measure and level it off with a straightedge, such as a metal spatula. Dont tap or pack it down, or your baked goods may turn out dry or, worse, rock hard.

Pantry

Brownies and other bar cookies require just a few ingredients, most of which you probably already have in your pantry or can find easily in your local supermarket.

Flour: Most recipes here call for all-purpose flour. One calls for cake flour (not self-rising, see Scottish Shortbread, page 69) and one calls for whole-wheat flour (see Whole-Wheat Fig Bars, page 81).

Sweeteners: granulated sugar, brown sugar, confectioners sugar, honey, and corn syrup.

Dairy: butter or margarine (see page 10), eggs, milk, cream cheese, sour cream, and heavy or whipping cream.