Brownie Update

This post is a wee bit tardy, but I wanted to let you know how successful my Guinness brownies turned out last weekend.  All that is left of them at this point is the sweet memories.  And once I frosted them with some Bailey's frosting, all of that craziness from the oven was forgotten.

The recipe is one I found at this lovely lady's blog.  There was a lot of chocolate involved, and even though I had to get out a double boiler, it wasn't nearly as much trouble as I had expected.  And well worth any trouble I did go to.
The frosting recipe is one I tweaked from a recipe for Car Bomb Cupcakes, which, let's face it, was the same thing I ended up making, but in more portable brownie form.  It's basically a variation on the classic Buttercream Frosting recipe off of the Domino's Confectioner's Sugar box.  I'm putting it here with my variations (mainly: more liquid, less sugar - it was becoming very stiff)

Bailey's Frosting:
1/2 cup butter (again, it called for unsalted, but I say hey, if you're going to add salt later, why bother with bland butter?) at room temp please
~3 cups confectioner's sugar
1 pinch salt (yes, even with salted butter, I still add some more salt)
3 Tablespoon's Bailey's Irish Cream
1 Tablespoon milk


I always like to start with the butter and about 1 cup of sugar, and cream those together in the mixer on medium speed or so.  Then add liquids and rest of sugar in stages, tasting as you go (tasting often always yields best results, both for the frosting and your disposition).  Remember, unlike baking, where it's a science and you have to put it in the oven before you know how it'll turn out, frosting is like soup: what you taste is what you get.  So trust your eyes and tastebuds: if it's too dry, add more liquid, if it's too wet, add more sugar.  Basically the only amount I stick to is the butter, the rest are negotiable!

I decorated the whole pan with some green candy melt.  I had big plans for making it plaid, but it just turned into a criss-cross pattern.  Not as lovely as I would have liked, but once they were cut up into 2"X2" pieces, nobody seemed to care.
Overall, I give them a C for pub crawl transportability (still better than a cupcake) but an A for flavor.  Plus, it always impresses friends when you can whip a good snack out of your mom-sized purse.