Maybe it's the snow, but sometimes only the slightest excuse is needed to bake. Seeing little heart-shaped cake tins at the store was just the impetus to get started.
The keys to making individualized brownies are slightly upping your liquids to allow for increased evaporation and controling your amount of dough in the tins as any excess will just cause a mess.
As the usual is usually avoided, instead of the simple, traditional brownie or blondie, there is a self-created recipe that is used which, if it were not Valentine's Day would be called my Nutty Blonde recipe. You will need the following:
- 2 eggs
- 2 cups tightly packed light brown sugar
- 3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 3/4 teaspoon almond or pecan extract
- 3/4 cup melted butter
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 1/2 cup unsifted flour
- couple of pinches salt (optional)
- 3/4 cup chopped pecans
- 1/2 cup chopped walnuts
- 1/2 cup sliced almonds
- 1/2 cup snowflake coconut (optional if you are trashy like myself)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a grinder, finely chop 1/4 cup of pecans. Add these pecans to the butter and melt. Proceed to lightly saute the pecans. You will lose some butter at this point, but I've allowed for this in the quantities. (If, by the way, you were making pot browies, you would treat them just as you do the pecans (same quantity of schwag finely chopped, then sauteed).)
Whisk the eggs, butter, brown sugar and the extracts so that all is airy and light. Slowly add in the baking powder, then the flour and salt. If you're a big wuss, use a mixer, but real men stir with a wooden spoon until all seems as one. Stir in all of the assorted nuts, creating a nice stiff lump of dough. Add your dough to the individual tins. stir in nuts (mix is stiff).
Fill each tin to no more than 1/2 full. Bake 20 to 25 minutes or until light brown. (See photo below). Cool at least 15 minutes, longer if you are applying icing.
My Sweet Hearts are certainly sweet enough without icing, but the icing adds a nice decorative holiday touch. A sour cream store-bought variety was chosen. Consider using excess chopped nuts or nonpareils as a nice topper to the icing.
These little hearts are great to bring some Valentines cheer to your office or a Sexual Compulsives Anonymous gathering. They clearly send the message to your recipient: I [heart you], but just a little, although not in some tacky-ass store-bought kind of way.
