In this corner, Jessica’s super secret family recipe.

In this corner, my hubby Nicholas using Alton Brown’s pancake recipe.

We used highly scientific tasting methods (a blindfold) and a highly trained tasting jury (our kids) to see whose pancakes were the best.

Even the adults got involved!

Despite not voting for my own husband’s pancakes (it was a long ride home), Nicholas won the final tally and the title of Grand Supreme Pancake Chef. It’s a good thing he won because Jessica wasn’t passing on her recipe win or lose!

Here’s the recipe for those of you who want to try the winning pancakes or see how your recipe holds up in a blind taste test:

Alton Brown’s Instant Pancake Mix and Instant Pancakes

Ingredients for Mix:

• 6 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda (check expiration date first)
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 tablespoon kosher salt
• 2 tablespoons sugar

Directions

• 2 eggs, separated
• 2 cups buttermilk
• 4 tablespoons melted butter
• 2 cups “Instant” Pancake Mix, recipe above
• 1 stick butter, for greasing the pan
• 2 cups fresh fruit such as blueberries, if desired

Check out Sweet Tater’s bake sale on her blog tomorrow, Thursday 3/3.  It’s being held to help raise some last-minute money to help Katie (Sweet Tater) get her butt to Nicaragua in order to do some wonderful things for the people in a small remote community there. She’ll be living in a hammock for a week, and bathing in a river! Bless her. You can read more about her trip here.

Check out her site for a preview of the goodies that will be available tomorrow. You can even find Lilly’s favorite Crunchy Peanut Butter Pumpkin dog treats, homemade by yours truly!

My homemade Crunchy Peanut Butter Pumpkin Dog Treats

~

It doesn’t mean I don’t let my mind wander, though. I recently saw this recipe for brownies with an Oreo crust, and was tempted. I still had some vanilla Joe Joes in the pantry from the Chocolate Joe Joe Cookies, and enough chocolate to rot my teeth just from looking at it. Before I knew it, Gooey Joe Joe Brownies were happening.

ingreeds: Flour choice is key with Gooey Brownies. The first time I made them, I only had whole wheat flour in the house (Gold Medal whole wheat, specifically) and worried they’d be mealy and gross. They weren’t, though…in fact I liked the effect so much I’ve used this flour every time since. The batter is so creamy (sweetened condensed milk and melted butter and melted chocolate…) that the bit of extra texture from the flour really works. Speaking of, this is a great read if you’re choosy about flour. CI is right that Gold Medal is blah, but I promise it won’t be a problem with these brownies. (Choose King Arthur for good whole wheat bread, pancakes, biscuits, etc., though.)

gooey joe joe brownies

crust:

2 1/2 rows of vanilla joe joes
1 stick of sweet cream salted butter, melted
dash of salt (Don’t be shy. The salty, crunchy crust tastes great with such creamy brownies. Think of salted fudge.)

gooey brownies:

2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 can sweetened condensed milk
2 sticks plus 2 T butter
2 1/2 cups brown sugar (light or dark)
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups Gold Medal whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp salt

Preheat the oven to 350°. Grease a 13″ x 9″ baking dish.

In a sealed plastic bag, mash the Joe Joes until crumbly. Stir them in with the melted butter and salt. Press them into the greased pan and bake for 10 minutes; set aside.

In a microwave-safe bowl, melt the chocolate chips, 2 T butter, and sweetened condensed milk in 30-second increments, until smooth. Pour into a large mixing bowl. In another microwave-safe bowl, melt the remaining 2 sticks of butter completely. Stir in the brown sugar until fully incorporated, then add the sugar/butter mixture to the large mixing bowl with the chocolate. Beat together until well blended. Beat in eggs and vanilla, then start gradually beating in the flour and salt. I hope your mixer has a lot of stamina.

Pour brownie batter over pre-baked cookie crust, spreading to the edges of the pan. Bake for 30-45 minutes or until edges are firm, but don’t over-bake! (They’re called gooey for a reason.)

Mere brought my attention to these Oreo-Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies the other day. It felt like a natural transition for me—when I brought orange-cream Oreo Cookie Cookies to a Halloween party this fall, I heard a lot of reactions (some more polite than others) to the fact that the Oreos weren’t mashed very finely. (I just like big, chunky bites of cookie in my cookies; what can I say?) The intact-Oreo concept was inevitable…but I had the urge to turn this recipe inside-out.

So, here’s to you, Meredith! Excellent find.

the twist: I followed the Oreo-Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies recipe only in spirit. I used vanilla Joe Joes from Trader Joe’s and packed them in chocolate cookie dough, loosely following this recipe.

ingreeds: I have a tough time shopping for cocoa powder; there are so many different kinds and brands, and the price variations make me worry about which ones will actually taste good. This article has been a huge help to me, with the added bonus at the end about converting actual chocolate to cocoa measurements for recipes. (One of my greatest character flaws is that I don’t always have baking chocolate in the house.)

Lastly, if you don’t like wearing cookie dough gloves, you won’t have fun making these. But I do, and did.

chocolate joe joe cookies

1/2 cup sweet cream salted butter, room temperature

1/2 cup light brown sugar

1/4 cup white granulated sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla ext.

1 cup cake or bread flour

1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/8 tsp salt

1 1/2 cups milk chocolate chips

9 to 12 vanilla Joe Joes

Preheat the oven to 350°.

Cream the butter and sugars until smooth. Beat in eggs and vanilla.

In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt. Slowly beat the dry ingredients into the butter and sugar mixture. Fold in chocolate chips.

Using spoons, spatulas, or (please) your hands, dollop the cookie dough onto the top and bottom of one Joe Joe at a time. Spread the batter around on all sides so the Jo Jos are sealed in.

Arrange on a cookie sheet covered with greased foil or parchment. Bake 9 to 13 minutes, or until edges are crisp.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/22/how-to-make-oatmeal-wrong/

Love.

If you don’t read his column(s) and blog, you should start immediately.

~

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

1½ cups all-purpose flour (substitute wheat flour for a healthier option)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup canned solid-pack pumpkin (Trader Joe’s Organic Pumpkin purée worked)
1/3 cup vegetable oil
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
1¼ cups (plus 1 Tablespoon) sugar
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
chocolate chips (optional)

Preheat your oven to 350°.

Put liners in muffin tin, or, if you’re like me and don’t have any cupcake liners on hand, lightly spray the tin with cooking spray and bake the muffins the old fashioned way — directly in tin. Here, I used Trader Joe’s Canola Oil Spray and gently wiped away excess with a paper towel to ensure that the tasty treats wouldn’t be saturated with what’s simply meant to grease the pan.

Whisk together pumpkin, oil, pumpkin pie spice, sugar, baking soda, salt, and eggs in a large bowl until smooth.

Next, whisk in flour and baking powder until just combined. To facilitate this and make it easy for wee helpers, I suggest adding the flour mixture in two parts.

Add desired amount of chocolate chips. I used 1 cup or half of a 12 oz. bag.

Stir together cinnamon and 1 Tablespoon sugar in another bowl. Divide batter among muffin tin (each cup should be about 3/4 full), then sprinkle tops with cinnamon-sugar mixture.

Bake until puffed and golden brown, where wooden pick or skewer inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean—about 25 to 30 minutes. If you’re cooking directly in the tin without wrappers, I’d suggest taking it out of the oven at 25 minutes to avoid drying out the moist cake because they’ll continue to bake when cooling in the pan.

Cool in pan on a rack for 5 minutes, then transfer muffins from pan to rack and cool to warm or room temperature.

These Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins, refined comfort food at its best, proved to be the perfect spirit-lifting antidote to our dreary days in Los Angeles (my family enjoyed the satisfying breakfast treats so much that we baked them twice in five days). The delish muffins are a delight to eat morning, noon, and night—just ask my waistline and again my family—because they’re the perfect balance of savory/sweet and moist/caramelized crunch. Yum!

My Little Muffin Man agrees.

~ The Other Sarah