This past New Year's Eve we had a gathering of our gamer friends to ring in the New Year. Even though @jacobtothe had to bail early in order to deploy the goodfriend.exe bit of his personality (Don't tell anyone but he's a beyond an excellent human馃槈), he was still around long enough to enjoy the bounty of food that adorned my counters.
There was smoked queso, pulled pork, fresh coleslaw, seven layer dip, the list goes on, but there was one thing that I whipped up that really made a splash, the brownie batter dip.
Now, anyone who spends any time on Pinterest, at least in the food realm, has probably been assaulted with no small amount of dip pins. After seeing about a million dessert dip pins I thought it might be kinda fun to whip up some sort of chocolatey dip for my party peeps to plunk various items in. Can you tell as a kid that I thought Dunkaroos were the cat's pajamas?!
Anyway, I scored a tub of Cool whip for $.28 whole cents during Thanksgiving and it was lurking in my freezer for a special occasion as we don't tend to eat a lot of the stuff. I took it out to thaw along with a block of cream cheese, and headed to the pantry.
One shelf in my pantry is devoted to mixes. You never know when a need for cookies, bars, or dips will arise. Ask anyone who knows me and they will tell you that you never know who or what is going to come through Kat's door. It's a pretty reliable occurrence that I will receive visitors, kinda like the whole sun comes up every day thing,
Anyway, guests need things to graze upon, at least I think they do, and that's why I have my shelf of mixes. I can whip up some cake mix cookies and have them in front of my guests in fifteen minutes flat. It's a thing.
And that's why I went to the shelf, as there was a chunky chocolate supreme brownie mix lurking there. I also got some mini chocolate chips out. Things were looking promising.
At the store a few days prior I picked up some pretzels, Nilla wafers, and some graham crackers because dipping all those things in chocolate brownie dip sounded fun. I grabbed those out of the pantry too.
Then I got to work assembling the dip. Not gonna lie here folks, it is pretty much the easiest dip ever to whip up. Which is a good thing as I had about three hundred other things to make and do before everyone arrived.
I plunked the softened cream cheese in my stand mixer bowl and beat it rather well, then I mixed in the Cool Whip. While I whipped those two things together I poured the brownie mix into a glass pie plate and heat treated it in the microwave. (Microwaved the mix for 1:15, stirring every fifteen seconds). Since I was serving the mix to guests it was a just in case move, cause I care, regardless of what @jacobtothe says...heh..
After heat treating the mix, I folded it and a couple tablespoons of whole milk into the cream cheese and Cool Whip mixture, and then I added 1/2 cup of mini chocolate chips too, because you know, chocolate.
Finally I spread it all in a cute little bowl my grandma got me at a garage sale years ago and put the whole thing into the fridge to await party guest demolishment.
When it came to serving time I took another half a cup of mini chocolate chips and sprinkled them onto the top of the dip before setting the bowl in the middle of the platter I put all the dipping mediums on. It looked pretty snazzy!
If I wanted to be really fancy I would have piped the dip into the bowl, but my gamer friends don't care about such things, we care about how the stuff tastes.
And holy divine! The dip was fantastic! Yes, it was not at all healthy, but for a party it was super fun and tasty.
Each one of us had a favorite dipper for the dip. A lot of my buds really enjoyed the Nilla wafers as the dip. Me, I liked the graham cracker pieces, but my brother took it to the next level. I had a container of vanilla cake truffles left from my holiday baking extravaganza, and he took one out, bit it in half, and spread a bunch of brownie batter on it before devouring the chocolate and vanilla glucose-laden taste bomb.
"That's mint right there, Sis." he announced, his face alight with contentment.
So of course we all had to try it, and it was indeed mint.
And on that note I will leave the recipe for the delectable and fun for a party brownie batter dip. I hope you enjoy it as much as we all did馃槉
Brownie Batter Dip
8 ounces cream cheese, softened
8 ounces of Cool Whip, thawed
18 ounce box of brownie mix, I used Betty Crocker Supreme Chocolate Chunk
2 TBSP whole milk
1 cup mini chocolate chips, dividedIn a mixing bowl, whip the cream cheese a bit, then add Cool Whip and beat until combined.
Next add brownie mix (see note below) and milk, mix well.
Fold in 1/2 cup of the mini chocolate chips
Spoon or pipe dip into a serving bowl. If serving right away, sprinkle the remaining chocolate chips on top and serve. If waiting til later to serve, cover the dip with plastic wrap and sprinkle chocolate chips on at serving time.
This dip is great served with Nilla wafers, pretzels, cookies of all kinds, graham crackers, marshmallows, fruit, and of course, cake truffles.
Note: To heat treat the brownie mix, place the mix in a microwave safe bowl and microwave for 1:15, stopping every fifteen seconds to stir well.
And as most of the time, all of the images in this post were taken on the author's non-chocolate coated iPhone.