Brownies on the Brain

The past couple of years I've taken up the habit of making treats for my friends as gifts (birthdays, Christmas, etc). So I usually tailor the gift to the recipient's taste or the theme of the occasion. One of my friend's LOVES green tea & crunchy cookies so I made him a batch of green tea butter cookies. One Christmas I made peppermint bark & cookies for all of my friends. Anyhow, you get the idea...

A really good friend of mine had her birthday earlier this month but I literally already planned what to make for her birthday THIS year when her birthday rolled around LAST year. My friend, let's call her Miss Mouse, L-O-V-E-S brownies. She also really likes mint chocolate. She loves dark chocolate. Naturally, I decided to make mint dark chocolate brownies. I've been experimenting with different brownie recipes for years and I finally found one last year that I really liked - the right balance of cake/fudge brownies... Although, you know that crackly "crust" you get from brownies from the box? Yeah, still experimenting to replicate that (and I think I have it figured out).

Brownies - I like substantial ones. Meaning, I like F-A-T brownies. I mean, if you're gonna indulge, you might as well go all the way. So I baked them in my favorite all edges brownie pan (my favorite piece is the corner) and cut them - the brownies looked like chocolatey cubes of yum. I picked up a small bottle of peppermint oil from a local cake supply shop with the sole purpose to make mint chocolate brownies - seriously. I wanted oil because it's more potent than extract. I also have a seemingly never ending supply of ghiradelli dark chocolate chips (my favorite chips for cookies) so I decided to mix those into the batter.

I packed the chocolate treasure into the box - it was HEAVY. And I can happily say that Miss Mouse thoroughly enjoyed her birthday present this year =)

the brownies almost overflow...

the fat brownie - I like to feed my friends.

Hodduk 호떡

Crispy on the outside, chewy on the inside w. a sweet filling - best eaten warm but not right off the frying pan unless you like 3rd degree burns on the inside your mouth & tongue. This my friends is hodduk. The batter differs from either just straight sweet rice flour, water, sugar & salt or a sweet bread dough or a mix of rice & wheat flours... Many a late night cravings have been satiated in LA by a quick run to a cart outside of a Korean market peddling this hot discs of sweet crack.

My mom used to make this snack all the time when i was growing up - I loved the combo of ttuk & sweet red bean paste. (Red bean b/c that's healthier than just brown sugar/peanuts). But after a while, the novelty wore off and we haven't really made it in quite some time... until this past weekend. My mom likes to make snacks for the choir group at church (of which she's a member, bless her little stage fright heart) for the mornings... Each member takes turns in providing the "breakfast". So she's been meaning to make the ttuk for a few months and I kept discouraging her (b/c I already knew how much work it would entail). Anyhow, what she thought was going to be a 2 hr project turned into an all afternoon thing... My mom tends to make them HUGE, like a rice cake burrito which I think is too much of a good thing. I did sneak in and experiment & make my own version...

 I like to let the ttuk get crispy so I fry it for a bit longer than I should on each side...

Just the right amount of sweet red bean paste