Brownies with Raspberry Frosting
Brownies are topped with a sweet Raspberry Frosting that gets it’s pink color completely from the fruit!
I don’t know if I’ll be able to do a FULL month of only pink foods this October, but I’ve definitely got quite a few pink recipes coming your way. I hope you enjoy them. I’m trying, once again, to make pink foods without food coloring. It can definitely be a challenge, but with so many red/pink berries out there, it’s not too difficult. And don’t forget the beets! I love beets and can’t wait to share some awesome beet dishes with you guys this month.
But I digress. My original plan was to make some chocolate cupcakes and top them with this pink raspberry frosting. But I filled my cupcake liners too full and they came out ugly. Delicious, but ugly. So I threw them in the freezer as I’m sure I’ll find another use for them (maybe I’ll throw them in some ice cream like I do with all my other leftover desserts).
It was late at night, I had already made the frosting, and I needed a treat to bring to work the next day for our monthly birthday celebration. So I threw a batch of brownies in the oven as my back-up plan. And honestly, I’m kind of glad the cupcakes didn’t turn out. Because this frosting on my favorite brownies was RIDIC.
As you can see in the pictures, this recipe results in a decently thick layer of frosting on top of the brownies. You could cut the frosting recipe in half if you don’t like as much frosting, but if you do that, I’m not sure we can be friends. I always swipe a taste here and there when I’m frosting something but I was literally eating this frosting by the spoonful. It’s that good.
Fair warning though, it is kind of a pain to make. There’s cooking and straining and more cooking, then chilling, and that’s all before you even start creaming any butter. Have some patience and you’ll be fine. You have to wait for the cupcakes or brownies to cool anyways. Believe me, it’s worth the extra effort.
Don’t forget about my Power of Pink Challenge! Make something PINK during the month of October to raise Breast Cancer Awareness and a chance to win a $100 donation to the charity of your choice.
One Year Ago: Banana Coconut Bread
Two Years Ago: Apple Crisp Pie and Turkey Veggie Burgers
Three Years Ago: Pizza Dough and Multi-Seed Crackerbread
Four Years Ago: Pumpkin Spice Cheesecake Brownies
Five Years Ago: Pumpkin White Chocolate Chip Cookies
Six Years Ago: The Cone Method and Steak and Salad
Raspberry Brownies
This recipe make a 9x13 pan of brownies. It can easily be cut in half and baked in an 8x8 or 9x9 square pan
Yield: 32 brownies
Ingredients:
For the Brownies
1 batch of my favorite brownies (or any other 9x13 batch of brownies), completely cooled
For the Frosting
24 oz fresh raspberries
1 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
7 cups powdered sugar
4-6 Tbsp heavy cream
Directions:
For the Brownies
Bake brownies according to recipe and allow to completely cool. I let mine cool overnight.
For the Frosting
In a small saucepan, gently heat the raspberries and mash with a potato masher. Strain through a fine mesh strainer to remove all of the mush and seeds, and put the raspberry juice back into the saucepan over medium heat, simmering. Reduce by approximately half, or until about 1/2 cup of reduced raspberry syrup. Pour into a cool heat-safe container, and allow to cool to room temperature.
In a mixer, cream the butter and half of the powdered sugar. It will take several minutes for the sugar to absorb the butter and look mealy. When it does, add the raspberry juice and beat slowly to incorporate. Next, add in the second half of the sugar and continue to mix on low. Eventually, the frosting will come together and look like frosting, but you don’t want it to be *too* stiff. Start by adding 4 Tbsp. heavy cream, and add more if the frosting is still too thick.
Brownie recipe from King Arthur Flour, Frosting recipe from pdx food love
I am Jen the Beantown Baker. Engineer by day and baking maven by night. Hubby serves as my #1 fan and official taste tester. We got hitched back in 2006. Barefoot. In the sand. With the waves crashing behind us. It was one of the best decisions we’ve ever made. 
Jen, I think I just died and went to heaven! Long live the Ring Ding!! LOL
http://www.simplysweeter.blogspot.com
Love this theme, so fun! The whole menu sounds delicious 🙂
Hi Jen,
Wow! These babies look really authentic. I’ve seen a lot of faux Ding Dongs in my day, and yours rank right up there. Very nice job!
🙂 Jane
Oh, I LOVE Ding Dongs!!! And yours look fabulous!
Even at 8a on a monday morning, I feel like I could eat a whole stack of those. Great job, they look delicious!
There is a local baking partnership here in the Los Angeles area that makes individual sized cakes and treats. They also recreate classic favorites such as the Ho-Ho. Thought you might enjoy the link. http://www.cakemonkey.com/
Oh your Ding Dongs look perfect. Absolutely perfect!! They make me want to jump up and make them now. Goodness!! Thanks for sharing the photos and recipe with us. I’ve yet to make the 7-minute frosting, so I’m looking forward to that.
Oh my, what a great recipe!
You’re killing me! Now I have to think about when I can fit Ring Dings into my schedule this week! They’d be so much better from scratch than they would out of the box…
These & oatmeal creme pies were my absolute favorite as a kid. I think they were called King Dons when I ate them. I definitely need to try this!
Oh, how fun. WIsh I had a couple right now.
Ring Dings! :)But that’s what they were called when Drake’s made them and we lived in NYC. Once we moved to FL they were Ding Dongs. Or do I have that backwards, hmm now I’m not exactly sure. Either way it wasn’t I that ate them but my Mom. I’ll have to give them a whirl for her and score some brownie points, hee-hee!
Hope you have a safe and Happy Memorial Day weekend!
~ingrid
omigosh YUM!! they sure do remind me of hostess cupcakes
Your ding dongs look perfect! Great job!
I’ve been thinking of making these for my mother for her birthday next week…but since she LOVE chocolate peanut butter, I thought I would fill the cakes with a peanut butter version of the white cream. Any suggestions on what peanut butter cream I should fill them with??
I would love your input, I trust you more than myself in this matter, haha.
FYI for anyone interested, I made mine into cupcakes since I don’t have round cake pans. The cupcakes take about 25 minutes to bake at the same temp. Really good but tons of work! Oh yeah I got 32 cupcakes using 1/4 cup batter in each cup. I had plenty of filling but I had to made a little more ganache, BUT I was a little heavy with it in the beginning so if you keep that in mind you could have enough.
Love these…I am an East Coat gal and I knew what you meant lol! I will NOT buy these for my kids with what is used for ingredients, but you have inspired me to make them! Thanks!
Sorry to say but mine fell apart and it was entirely to much work. Much better to just go to the store and buy them.
These look just like the original, but I bet they’re so much more tasty. Great job!
beantownbaker — January 5th, 2013 @ 11:44 pm
They sure are better than the original – a lot more work though, but definitely worth it!
Can the coffee be substitutes with anything else?
beantownbaker — January 17th, 2013 @ 4:51 pm
The coffee just enhances the chocolate flavor. You can just use water instead if you don’t have any coffee or don’t like coffee.
I just made these for my mothers birthday(ring dings are the only dessert she enjoys) they came out great! Awesome recipe
beantownbaker — February 3rd, 2013 @ 9:46 pm
So glad you enjoyed them. Happy birthday to your mother!
hey.. made these.. testing recipes for a summer camp job I start this June.. so good, but might stick with cupcakes for kids..
took cake chunks and extra frosting.. made cake balls! Rolled in melted peanut butter then dripped chocolate over… YUM… love your site.. looking for more camp ideas.. kid friendly!
beantownbaker — February 24th, 2013 @ 10:28 am
Cupcakes definitely would be less messy for kids. I really like the portability of bars and brownies. I have tons of those on my blog too.
Making cake balls with PB and chocolate on top sounds amazing!
Never had these before but look good! I might just use the whole cake and cut out rings with the cutter and fill them up in the whole cake then cover in choc. What if you put marshmallow filling? Do you think it would be to soft to cut into pieces of cake?
OMG Jen, just saw this recipe linked from HuffPo article! Sorry, can’t get the link on my phone. 🙁 Slide show on manufactured foods that taste better homemade.
beantownbaker — August 4th, 2013 @ 6:43 pm
Thanks for letting me know! I found the post.
Amazing results. Rarely do I find the recipes that claim to be “just like” the original actually live up to those claims. This one did. LOVE.
beantownbaker — August 27th, 2013 @ 7:58 am
So glad you enjoyed them!
The recipe says to use filling same day. I need to make the cakes a day or 2 ahead of party. If I fill them right away, will they hold for a day or so in the refrigerator ? I don’ t want them to get soggy.
Can these be frozen?
Made these for a friend’s birthday party. Definitely time intensive…assembly took me forever. I made 16 cupcakes and 24 mini-cupcakes and had lots of extra cake batter. The cake is amazing, super moist and flavorful…but fally-aparty so hard to work with when dipping in ganache or spreading ganache over it. After I spent hours making these, they ended up smashed together in one side of the pan that I packed them in to the party. i would highly recommend transporting them in a cupcake tin or something where they will not move. The ganache never “dried” for me so mine were gooey on the outside too, and pretty much a mess to eat. Don’t get me wrong, they taste amazing and everyone enjoyed eating them…but if I was to do it over again, I would just use the ingredients to make a cake.
Do you have to use hot coffee? Can you just use plain hot water.
I don’t know what happened. I made Red Velvet “Fwinkies” (fake Twinkies), but covered them with chocolate so basically a hybrid or a Fwinkho. I have a delectovals pan. After piping in the 7-minute frosting, I dipped the bottoms in melted chocolate to seal and then covered the top in chocolate. The next day, I took them to a sorority luncheon as a treat. Well, the cream filling disappeared and I have to wonder did sealing the bottoms with the warm melted chocolate basically disintegrate the cream filling? I want to make something like this for a gender reveal next week, but I may have to change up the cream filling because I can’t leave the bottoms bare. Any advice?
Thank you!