All it’s missing it a tiny fairy having tea on the pistachio moss. # 344: Strawberry Brownie Toadstools

Feeling a little whimsical and enchanted over here! Chubby little mushrooms made out of brownies, strawberries, white chocolate and candy melts. And a dash of magic, of course.

So the piping could be more precise but it’s a mushroom ok? Nature is messy! Focus on the brownie center.

According to gardeners of the internet, toadstools and mushrooms are technically both general terms for fungi. While they aren’t officially different, the term “toadstool” has an association with poisonous fungi that have a distinguishable cap and stem, as opposed to the term “mushroom” which is associated with edible fungi of any shape. Mostly I love the possibility that the name “toadstool” came from the fact that toads can perch on the squat, flat tops of these fungi. Ha, made you smile!

In pursuit of structural stability, I started overthinking recipe semantics. “Cakey” sounded like it would hold it’s shape well but also be too dry for a brownie, where as “fudgy” seemed like it would collapse on itself. I landed on a “chewy” brownie recipe and I’m going to pretend that helped with the gravity-defying aspect of these lil toadstools.

Sparkly sugar causing sandcastle cravings.

Swoosh.

These molds were so excited to get used again (read: I was thrilled that this recipe called for the one and only shape of silicon mold I already own, huzzah!)

As someone who struggles with chocolate work, candy melts are both magical and confusing. They don’t require tempering and yet still have a crisp snap and smooth finish when cooled. Vegetable oil is the main fat in confectionery coating / candy melts and it would like everyone to know it’s less finicky than cocoa butter.

This mold is truly the MVP of the bake. It got a second use by painting in the melted candy coating and popping the brownie back in to fuse and set. A true win-win situation: way less messy than pouring the melted coating over the brownie or trying to dip it in, and it creates a thinner candy shell so there’s more brownie per bite. Shouts to @beautyanddasweetz on Instagram for the genius move!

Strawberry hot tub time.

After the coating set, I lopped off the strawberry top so the toadstool had a better chance of standing up straight.

My kind of mushroom foraging.

Happy munching!

Design idea from Maria Gomez (@beautyanddasweetz on Instagram)

Brownie recipe from: https://handletheheat.com/chewy-brownies/