“watch out for the shards of peppermint”
oh what a journey it took to find this next recipe. 3/4s of a pizza, one bag of crazy bread, a glass and a half of wine, a trip to target and 4 cookbooks later have brought us to this. of course, that was all shared with L, the other half of lazy bird. we decided that we were going to make the dough to each of our next challenges together but little did we know just how in over our heads we were at the time. i won’t tell you what we were going to make, just know that we tried and will someday reevaluate and try again! but, in search of a back-up recipe for this week i came across a little Christmas in july. oddly enough, the week prior our friend Lori had brought up the idea of doing something Christmasy. so, in the end it all worked out with the exception of my posting this in august. but, rest assure this was made in july.
candy cane-brownie trifles (side note, i think 2 batches of brownies would have been better. they were a little scarce in the trifle bowl.)
part 1 – brownies:
1 boxed brownie mix
part 2 – chocolate peppermint sauce
6 ounces semisweet chocolate coarsely chopped
3 T butter
1 1/4 cups half-and-half or light cream
3/4 granulated sugar or sugar substitute
3 T light corn syrup
1/4 teaspoon peppermint extract or 1T peppermint schnapps
part 3 – whipped cream
1 extra large glass mixing bowl – chilled
beaters from electric mixer – chilled
2 cups whipping cream
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1/4 teaspoon peppermint extract or 1T peppermint schnapps
garnish
1 cup crushed peppermints
let’s make some brownies. follow the box as directed and bake. now, i did make some brownies from scratch and they just didn’t cut it. there is no shame in using a back-up brownie mix. betty crocker never steers you wrong. while your brownies are baking start working on the chocolate peppermint sauce. once your brownies have cooled, cut them into small squares. smaller than a typical brownie portion.
chocolate and peppermint are a match made in heaven! on low heat, chocolate burns easily so this is very important, start melting your chocolate and butter in a medium sauce pan. once melted add your half-and-half, sugar and corn syrup. bring to a rolling boil, which requires you to turn up the heat a little, and stir constantly for 8 minutes once the boiling starts. remove from the heat and add your peppermint flavoring. as this cools it will thicken up.
homemade whipped cream is amazing and you should never buy it from the store ever again. :D haha. remember that glass bowl and beaters you chilled? now take those out of the fridge and pour in your whipping cream, powdered sugar and peppermint extract. set your mixer to a medium speed and start whipping. this is going to take a little while, but eventually the consistency changes to a fluffy meringue-like consistency. keep an eye on this, because if you go too far you’ll be well on your way to making butter. :)
now you must construct your masterpiece. in a trifle bowl or in individual martini glasses or some other form of individual dishes, you will begin to layer all 4 parts. first lay down some brownies, followed by drizzles of sauce and sprinkled with some crushed peppermints. add your whipped cream on top of that and repeat until you have filled up your dish or have run out of things to layer with. i ended mine with a layer of whipped cream, drizzled with chocolate sauce with some peppermints scattered on top.
this was a really light treat and very much a crowd pleaser. enjoy!
-b
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