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24 January 2013
(Update: I started writing this blog post this morning. It is now night time and I was right- today was a doozie of a day as well, but I'm still alive, so I consider it a successful day all in all.)
HOLY CROW! Yesterday was a doozie of a day for me. (Well, I'm not going to lie, this whole week has been a doozie and today and tomorrow aren't going to be much better.) I've been babysitting a couple other kids this week. Mine plus theirs equals 7 total, including two 4 year-olds and two 1 year-olds. And you know how kids in large groups always bring out the worst in each other, right? I told a friend just yesterday that I wish I could just strap my own 4 year-old into a straight jacket and hang her on a wall somewhere. Yes, it was truly one of those days. But they're all good kids, so I am grateful for the experience.
Do you want to know what I do when I need to de-stress? I get crafty or bakey. Last night it was bakey. Chocolate is like my own special, tasty form of valium, and I heeded the call and I was gall-darned determined to soothe the craving. I had chocolate chips, but they're insufficient. I could have made cocoa or baked cookies, but it wouldn't have been good enough. Oh no! I had to go all the way and make the fudgiest brownie I possibly could with what was in my pantry. Alas, my best cookbooks are still lost in boxes as I try to unpack from having moved 3 months ago. (I know, I need to pick up the pace on that.) So I had to get a random recipe from the internet before dinner and make do with it.
All of you foodies out there know as well as I do that taking an unknown recipe from the internet usually goes one of two ways: you either hate it or you love it. This was neither. It was a chain of events that would have proved catastrophic for lesser mortals, but nay, not for this domestic goddess! I started out intending to try this "ultimate brownies" recipe as it was written, willing to give it a chance in its original form before making any tweaks until the next time. (Yes, almost every recipe I get my hands on faces the same fate: try it as it is written first, I make my assessments on how it will need to be improved- because you know as well as I do that there's almost always room for improvement, and then I work my culinary magic on round two- and in rare cases a round 3, then they go into my personal cookbook. But I digress...)
Here’s a word of advice for everyone that I’m sure you’ve all heard more than once in your baking lives: Always make sure you have all of the ingredients on hand before you begin the project. Desperation compelled me to force myself off of that culinary cliff with full knowledge that I would be forced either to fly or fall. Well… The jury determined that this momma has herself some wings! Yeah, baby!
So, because I am radtastic, I will share the recipe. You’ll have to tell me what you think.
Here’s what the original recipe looked like:
8- 1 oz squares unsweetened chocolate
1 cup butter
5 eggs
3 cups sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla
1 ½ cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 ½ cups chopped nuts, toasted
(I also present to you my disclaimer: You’ve got to have at least a basic understanding of the way fats and oils, etc work in baking in order to not think I was absolutely insane, and I assure you I am not… for now. (Harharhar)
Heather Scott’s Treacle Fudge Pumpkin Brownies
1 stick butter
2 c semi or bittersweet chocolate chips
1 c sour cream
2 c (or 15 oz canned) pumpkin purée
10 eggs
3 c sugar
1 c brown sugar
4 T vanilla extract
1 ¾ c cocoa
2 t salt
2 c flour
Melt the butter and chocolate chips, add the sour cream, mix until
smooth. Add the pumpkin purée, mix well,
then gradually add the eggs until everything is incorporated. Add the sugars and vanilla (I don’t drink or
bake with alcohol- shocking but true- but if you do, then this would be a good
place to put half vanilla extract and half bourbon or kahlúa on your own particularly stressful
day) and mix until smooth. Then just gradually
add the cocoa powder, salt, and then flour until everything is incorporated. Pour into two 8”x10” pans which you have generously
coated with baking spray. Bake at 325
for 40 minutes or until they smell absolutely awesome from the oven and they
are firm to touch when tapping the center of them. Allow them to cool slightly and then cut them
however large or small you like! They
taste like treacley chocolatey pumpkin heaven!
Also before serving, if you dig it, dust them with a bit of powdered
sugar. It’s pretty. ;)
So you want the explanations for how this recipe evolved so drastically in my time of desperate determination? Here we go:
Choc. chips- I didn’t have any baking squares and didn’t have enough butter to do the butter to cocoa powder substitution.
Sour cream- again I didn’t have enough butter, so I needed another fat.
Pumpkin- I needed more “fat” but wanted these to be a little healthy and used the pumpkin purée in place of butter or oil. This is where I decided for sure to double the recipe, because I didn’t want to use only half the bloomin’ can of pumpkin.
Sugar- Once I got to this step I opened up my pantry to grab the sugar canister and said, “oh crap!” But I wasn’t going to let that stop me from my brownies last night so I went with what I had. Brown sugar, in my opinion, is sweeter than granulated sugar, so I looked in my cupboard and saw I had about one cup and dumped it in. Also, because I used semisweet chocolate chips, I didn’t panic because they have more sugar than chocolate in them. (Don’t believe me? Just check the label on that yellow bag next time you’re at the store.) At that point I just decided to go with it. I knew they would be plenty sweet already.
Cocoa- I decided to taste the batter at this point to see if the flavors were balanced and all I could taste was sugar and pumpkin. Had to add more and it was great.
So there you have it. I told you I’m not insane, I’m just determined to succeed. For how often I do this sort of thing here at home, maybe I would be an awesome contestant for the next food network star. We could call my show "Real Life Homemaking." (I’m just not into the drama of all the other contestants selling their souls just to shank the next person.) You hear that, Food Network? I am ready for my private audition!
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