Brownie Bites

Yesterday, the Christmas cookie baking began in earnest. 

Or at least it began, anyway.  All I got made were 4 dozen one-bite brownies, but it's a start.

And I'll take it.

Today?  More one-bite brownies and a lot of refrigerator cookie dough to make.

I plan on dividing 12 dozen one-bite brownies in half, and doing half of them with coconut-pecan frosting (like the kind you get on German chocolate cake) and the other half with peppermint frosting dotted with little mint chips.

I made some with the mint frosting last year and they were delicious.

How do I make these nummy brownies, you ask?  Pretty easily:


I bought a multi-mix box of Hershey's ultimate chocolate brownie mix from Sam's Club.  It comes with 4 pouches of mix, and each pouch makes 4 dozen brownie bites.  You mix up the batter, and spoon about a tablespoon (give or take, you have to eyeball it a bit) of batter into mini-muffin tins that have been sprayed with cooking spray.  You bake at 325 F for about 19 minutes and...voila!...seriously yummy, chewy, fudgy bite-sized brownies.

I could make these from scratch, but I'm on a time crunch due to the impending Christmas play on Sunday and my volunteering to bring some cookies for parents and grandparents after the show.  And so?  I'm doing a quick bake on a few of these this year.  (Sorry food purists!)

For the frosting?  I bought a tub of the coconut-pecan in caramel icing for half of the brownies.  And for the other half?  I'll take some vanilla frosting and add mint flavoring to it.  Then I'll top with bits of crushed red and white mint candies or maybe candy canes, depending on what I have on hand here today.

After they are frosted, the brownies get separated in layers by waxed paper, otherwise they get covered in frosting top and bottom.  It's tasty, I'll give you that, but not all that easy to pick up on a buffet table or pack into a gift tin.

At some point over the next couple of days, I also need to make the rum balls, so the rum can soak into the cookies completely.  And I also have some white chocolate candy to make as well.  But probably not today.

Because after the brownies?  I'm making dough for refrigerator cookies -- which are basically "slice and bake" sorts that have to refrigerate 24 hours before they can be sliced and baked.  I'll be making dough for:  lemon meltaways, jeweled fruit slices, spiced pecan cookies and chocolate chippers.  I'll pile all of these in the fridge and will be ready to bake them by tomorrow.

The lemon ones get some lemon frosting on them, and the spiced pecan ones get caramel.  And now I'm making myself hungry...

(Photo via chotda.)