Winter Grind Brownies with Squashed Glaze

When I saw that Mother's Brewing Company was having a recipe contest, I knew I wanted to submit a beer brownie recipe. Chocolate and beer are two of my favorite things! Mother's is a local favorite of mine, but my absolute favorite beer they make is Winter Grind coffee stout. It's great for winter months as the name suggests, and the coffee flavor is prominent, but not overpowering. I decided to go with a Squashed chocolate pumpkin porter glaze, because duh, chocolate and pumpkin. It may seem like these brownies have a lot going on, but the flavors work well together and are ten times better than any brownie that comes from a box. Here's the instructions, recipe follows!

Preheat oven to 350 degrees, grease 9 x 13 pan, set aside. Mix flour, cocoa, and salt together in small mixing bowl.

Open a beer for yourself because you do have at least five of them you won't be needing in this recipe. 

In double boiler, melt butter and semi sweet chocolate. You'll only need 3/4 of the 4oz chocolate package. Feel free to eat the rest, because hey, you deserve it. While that's melting beat together sugar, brown sugar, and eggs with electric mixer high speed until thoroughly mixed, then add in vanilla. Once butter/chocolate mixture is nice and melty, stir in the Winter Grind and chilled coffee. Once mixed, add to other wet ingredients in large bowl. Stir in flour mixture until combined, but be careful not to over mix. Fold in chocolate chips. Pour in a 9 x 13 baking dish and put in the oven.

Bake for 30-35 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean. Or a cocktail umbrella because you're out of toothpicks.

While the brownies are baking, start making the glaze.

Heat Squashed in small saucepan for about 10 minutes, make sure you watch it closely, as it gets pretty frothy.

Whisk powdered sugar and Squashed in small bowl, add pumpkin pie spice. Add a splash of heavy cream to the desired consistency, it should look something like this. 

Pour over brownies and serve with a delicious, local, craft beer!

For the brownies:

Ingredients:
1 3/4 cup flour
1/3 cup cocoa
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
3 oz semi-sweet chocolate
3 eggs
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1 cup Winter Grind coffee stout
1/2 cup chilled strong brewed coffee
1 cup chocolate chips (I used mini chocolate chips!)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees, grease 9 x 13 pan, set aside.
2. Mix flour, cocoa, and salt together in small mixing bowl.
3. In double boiler, melt butter and semi sweet chocolate.
4. In a large bowl, beat together sugar, brown sugar, and eggs with electric mixer high speed until thoroughly mixed, then add in vanilla.
5. Once butter/chocolate mixture is nice and melty, stir in the Winter Grind and chilled coffee. Once mixed, add to other wet ingredients in large bowl.
6. Stir in flour mixture until combined, but be careful not to over mix. Fold in chocolate chips.
7. Pour mixture into the greased pan and bake for 30-35 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean!


For the Glaze:

1/2 cup Squashed chocolate pumpkin porter ale
1 cup powdered sugar
1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
Splash of heavy cream

1. Heat Squashed in small saucepan for about 10 minutes, be careful not too overheat it, as it gets super frothy. This will make it a little syrup-y and will also cook the alcohol out if you're concerned with that.
2. Whisk powdered sugar and Squashed in small bowl, add pumpkin pie spice. Add a splash of heavy cream to the desired consistency, see photo above for what mine looked like.

I stored my glaze in a separate container and added it to the brownies upon serving. Store in the refrigerator. Enjoy!

Stockholm

After our trip to Dublin, me and Ellea headed to Stockholm. Nice was a foreign exchange student from Thailand at my high school like five years ago and we had managed to keep in touch on Facebook. She happened to be studying in Stockholm this semester, so we decided to meet up! It's funny how life works out sometimes and people you thought you'd never see again show up in your life at the most random times.

We went on another free walking tour and learned that H&M was founded in Sweden. We celebrated by buying stuff, of course. Stockholm is also home to the largest Ikea in the whole world. The closest Ikea to me at home is about nine hours by car, so this was a huge deal to me. We ate as many Swedish meatballs as possible and admired the beautiful rooms. Ellea accidentally took out 5,000 Swedish kronos because the exchange rate there is a bit confusing, which is about $600 (we were only there two days). We saw a fake office that could be bought in it's entirety for about how much money Ellea had. We giggled a lot. We also visited one of the Archipelago islands surrounding the city. It was absolutely beautiful.

A couple years ago, I saw this cookie cookbook online. The books were given out for free, but only in Sweden stores. I had asked a friend in Sweden to grab me a copy, but no such luck. I had completely forgot about it until I saw a random, lonely copy on a shelf in one of the kitchens. I grabbed it and swooned at how pretty it is. The nice Ikea man let me have it for free, the only problem is, it's all in  Swedish...

Playing house.

Pretty friends.

Summer feet and a new chevron towel (from H&M of course).

Swedish clogs, maybe my favorite souvenir I've ever purchased.

I am living the dream I think.

Dublin

I ventured to Ireland about a week ago with Allison and my friend I met in Amsterdam, Ellea. There was a lot of food (steak and Guinness pie, shepherds pie, and countless potatoes), a lot of beer, and a lot of really amazing scenery. We took a free city walking tour, which I really wish we had in America. Basically natives of a city guide tourists around the city and tell them cool stories and you only pay them what you think they earned. It's a really cool concept.

My favorite part of the Ireland trip was our day excursion to Galway and the Cliffs of Moher. The pictures don't even do it justice.

The Liffey!

Temple Bar District

Pouring a pint of Guinness at the factory! Guinness tastes much better in Ireland.

Pub crawlin'.

Sky to sea gradient.

Howth, Ireland.

Irish country side!

Daredevil. 

Queen's Day

I'm really awful at blogging in a timely fashion. I'm going to try to catch up tonight, so when you see like five new posts, that's why.

My friend Allison came to visit me for Queen's Day, which is basically a giant celebration where people wear orange (Holland's country color) and get really drunk in the streets and ride on boats. It's actually to celebrate the Birthday of Holland's previous Queen, but that's how people "celebrate." Prior to all of the Queen's Day shenanigans, we explored Amsterdam and I showed her my favorite spots. I finally took my picture with the I Amsterdam sign, which I actually wrote a paper about regarding Amsterdam's city marketing. Yes, we actually have to study in Amsterdam sometimes. We went to a cute little town called Zaans Schaans, which has the most windmills I've ever seen. We also visited the most gorgeous library I've ever been to. 

On Queen's Day we walked around and attempted to drink gross, warm Heineken. We ditched the Heineken halfway through the day and made some Dutch man very happy. The day after Queen's Day we saw a Train concert. I haven't really listened to them much, but it's Allison's favorite band so we went! It was a good time and the venue was an old church!

The picture is blurry, but Allison's pants are bright orange. And they matched the floor...

So crowded.

Probably my favorite bar in Amsterdam.

Before Train.

I'm in love with Amsterdam.

I'm really not enjoying the new Blogger layout, like everyone else (what the hell Google). I've had strep throat for the past four days and have pretty much only left my bed for grapes. Seriously. I am way behind on blogging and hopefully something good can come from this terrible illness. But on happier note, I find a new reason to love this city every day. A few weeks ago I went to the flea market with my friend Ellea in Noord. I'm used to seeing all of the same things in Springfield, MO, which has spoiled me on the flea market front. We have over fifteen at least. We had to take a cute, lil' ferry to get there and it was a beautiful day! I managed to only buy some pretty mid-century shot glasses and a set of tin canisters. I am now an international canister collector. I fell in love with an antique, wooden Heineken case, which would have made a beautiful shelving unit, but I don't think American Airlines will accept that as my "personal item."

After the flea market, we went to a brewery inside of a windmill! I got the sampler to make my papa proud and stole a couple coasters. I also spotted a Boulevard Pale Ale in the bar's giant collection of bottles. I was impressed.

Here's an update of my life in photos and instagrams!

Dreary, beautiful day outside of school.

There was a ferris wheel in Dam Square. This was the view. 

So many vintage chairs!

I think the concept of a Botel is awesome. 

I like white beers, I'm coming to find. 

It's Blitz!

Exploring Eastern London was my favorite part of the London trip. I always enjoy escaping the tourists and crowded city centers. We originally ventured to this part of town to see original Banksy graffiti, which we did. At first we thought we had stumbled into the ghetto a little bit, but then after further exploration, we concluded it's a hip part of town and they prefer things that way. Eastern London is kind of vintage heaven. I did not spend a dime, which I have no idea how I managed. The pound is a lot more than the dollar and the vintage was not too cheap, not like in good ole' Springfield, Missouri. There is a Lomography store there, which also has the cutest little developing area. I'm really proud I didn't buy anything, especially here. We also went to London's first vintage department store and I was completely smitten. After, we browsed through a shop with literally hundreds of gorgeous leather weekend bags, but I did not see a single Samsonite. This surprised me a little bit, but it's probably good because lord knows I have enough.

Banksy dog. 

So much cool street art.

Scarves!

They had an entire polka dot section.

Yes, these are all vintage Burberry trenchcoats. At £100 each though, it was pretty easy to turn down.

Photobooth fun, haha, I obviously was not prepared for the first shot.