Gussied Up Brownies

It’s funny, the other day my husband asked me what was going on.  Hadn’t made brownies in the last 10 years and suddenly I’ve made them twice in the past two weeks.  It’s true.  I’m really not a big baker, although making chocolate chip cookies with my mom was one of my favorite pastimes.  So when asked to bake something, I get a bit nervous they won’t taste quite right or something will go awry…like my mangled mess of brownies.

I’ve learned a couple things from making these recent batches of brownies.

• Make sure they are COMPLETELY cool, otherwise you will end up with a mangled mess when you try to cut them.
• Throw them in the freezer to make for easier cutting.  It says this right on the box and still I didn’t do it. 
• Use a plastic knife. I’ve never heard of this, but a couple people told me about it and swear by it. Next time, plastic knife!

Okay, so now let’s talk about getting them all fancied up to go out on the town.  A friend of mine tipped me off to this clever idea.  One of those, "why didn’t I think of that?” ideas. 

• Put them in cupcake liners. Too cute and added bonus – makes for easy distribution at class parties.  I did that for pudding cups, but somehow the light bulb didn’t go off for brownies until I saw my friend’s.  Thanks, Emily!  
• Gussy them up with frosting and sprinkles.

Don’t these brownies look extra special all dressed up and ready to go?  These are the brownies my friend made that tipped me off to jazz up my next batch of brownies.

I decided to Christmas-fy mine with some crushed candy canes and silver cupcake liners.

If you sprinkle the crushed candy canes on top while the brownies are still warm, you won’t need frosting.  The warmth of the brownies combined with the sugar of the candy canes keeps them stuck on without frosting.

You almost can’t tell how mangled they are. 

One last tip - transporting these guys.  Grab a cupcake courier of some sort.  You can find them most anywhere – Target, Home Goods, etc.  I’ve been wanting one, except most of the time, they only hold 24 cupcakes and most classrooms have over 24 kids.

Emily received this one that holds 36 cupcakes by The Cupcake Courier.  This link is just the home page, not a distributor, but I found some on Amazon.  I’m sure you could run a Google search to find them elsewhere.

I suppose you could always buy two sets of 24.  One option I found that seemed flexible was one from Snapware.  You would still need to buy two sets for more than 24, but it offers the option to click a layer on or off to fit your needs.  Most of the ones I’ve found can also convert for cake or cookie transportation.

So have you baked anything and fancied it up lately?  Send us the link in the comments so we can check them out!  Or email me a picture.