I stumbled upon these santa hat brownies via a post on Facebook by The Mucky Macbook. The particulars can be found on Daisy's World's blog here, but have been adapted from a recipe by Erica's Sweet Tooth. Phew, quite a chain of attribution but think it's worth it.
This was my initial attempt and not up to Master Chef standards, clearly. I would be on my way to an elimination challenge. Frequent readers will know I'm a normal woman who tries things out, hopes for the best, and learns from her mistakes. And when mistakes happen, which they sometimes do, I don't sugarcoat them.
I learned that it's probably better to use cake-y vs. chewy brownies since they will have more height. Medium sized strawberries look better. One's piping technique should be perfected (mine is shaky). I used a plastic squeeze bottle with icing tip that worked reasonably well absent a spasm or two. The mascarpone icing recipe could use more icing/confectionary sugar to make it stiffer, but this might be a function of our NZ butter and mascarpone so do what you need to do. I couldn't find a cutting ring small enough to use in our local shops, so in true Kiwi DIY tradition improvised using a plastic bottle top and knife. I'll look online or in the higher end kitchenware stores in Auckland to try to find a better option for this, but for today's experiment this was fine.
These were promptly delivered to the little girls in the back, at least those who are good girls on Santa's list. While they might look a bit rough, they taste great!
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