(who doesn't love brownies served up on a silver platter by a girl with a big smile??) A baker, I am not.
Baking requires a keen attention to detail and a strict adherence to ingredient proportion. It's edible chemistry, a series of ingredient reactions designed to evoke a very specific result, and anyone who knows me knows I tend to run screaming in the opposite direction of anything that even remotely smells of Chemistry. I consider cooking to be more amorphous, the amount of each ingredient can be adjusted to taste, for cooking time, for availability, etc. It's less precise aspects attract me to it, and I feel less constrained and more free to be creative. Baking makes me feel corralled, claustrophobic, even.
However, there are exceptions to every rule and even I have a few confectioneries up my sleeves. Since these particular attempts are going to be few and far between, I figured it would do good to share my absolute favorite dessert right away: BROWNIES.
Above and beyond any other sweet I've ever tried, brownies continue to take the cake (pardon the pun) and melt my heart. Sure, brownies-not-from-a-box are spectacular, but even I have learned how to doctor the Betty Crockers and produce a dark, melty, rich, pan of ooey-gooey brownies*. On the whole, I am not an indulger of the dessert course. I prefer savory foods to sweet, but there are a select few "dolci" I cannot resist: creme brulee, sorbet, gelato, certain cakes, and brownies! This particular day is not a day for from-a-box-brownies. Today, I hearken back to the days of my childhood and reproduce the homemade brownies my mom used to make.
I call my mom every single day. Usually I chatter away about some kind of nonsense (God bless her for listening to my rambling), and she tells me about the late-breaking crisis at work, or updates me on the fam. But mostly, we talk about food. There's rarely a day I don't ask her what she's making, and we usually end up talking about my latest attempt in the kitchen, how it worked out, will I email her the recipe? This day was no exception. I dialed her number on my cell phone with a single purpose: to get her brownie recipe. I remember being little, standing on a footstool at the kitchen counter, breaking up bars of unsweetened chocolate into a bowl for melting, mixing it with the sugar, and waiting, at the oven door, with a salivating mouth, for those brownies to come out, piping hot (my brother will likely claim that I have made up this memory, like I allegedly have all my others). And now, I'm all grown up, no step stool needed (just an apron, I'm really messy when flour is involved), and I want to make them on my own.
[Sidebar: that last phrase, "I want to make them on my own" is at the heart of a lot of what I attempt in the kitchen. When I first started cooking on my own, I made what I knew, what I remembered from my childhood. I made the things my mom made for me. That basic repertoire of recipes has built a solid foundation for me to grow from. Those recipes of yore gave me the confidence to try new things, to branch out, to be brave. And that's really really cool, but I've been making all these things FROM her, without her, and sometimes, like today, that can make me a little bit nostalgic, and a little bit sad.]
My mother so faithfully revealed her source of her luscious brownie spell: The Fannie Farmer Cookbook, published in 1965 (some good things don't ever have to change). I scribbled down the simple ingredients, the simple directions, had a quick chat about perhaps adjusting the cooking time, and then, I was off!
Let me just say that this really IS seriously simple--almost jokingly so, and since I usually have 6 out of the 7 ingredients on hand at all times, it cost me $2.49 for the chocolate--the same price as the box version, and exponentially better-tasting. This recipe is doubled from the original, and makes about 12 large brownies.
Brownies
40z. unsweetened chocolate
1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter
2 cups sugar
4 eggs (large, at room temp)
1 cup flour
2 tsp vanilla extract
pinch of salt
Preheat oven to 325 F. Melt the chocolate and butter together in a bowl (this can be done on the stove in a double boiler, or in the microwave). Once melted, let stand/cool for about 5 min. In the meantime, combine the sugar, eggs, flour, vanilla and salt in a bowl, whisk together. Pour in the melted chocolate/butter mixture, and stir until everything is well incorporated. Pour into 9x13 baking pan, bottom lined with wax paper, sides greased. Bake for 30-40 min or until toothpick comes out clean from center of pan. Cool completely, slice to desired size (or don't slice at all. Personally, I feel the perfect brownie size is equivalent to the size of the pan it was baked in), and indulge.
Crumbly, light, yet rich and chewy all at once, these brownies sort of melt down in your mouth. Best to eat them with a large glass of very cold milk, or warm, under a scoop of vanilla ice cream. All things considered, I think I did this particular brand of nostalgia justice. Only thing missing was la mia madre.
Buon Appetito!
*The secret to making from-the-box-brownies really really good--good enough to fool all of your friends into thinking they were made from scratch--is: semi-sweet chocolate chips. Buy a box of regular fudge brownies (sans additions), and a 12 oz. bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips. Make the brownies according to package instructions, and then stir in the ENTIRE bag of chips. DO NOT adjust temp or cooking time; the chips will get melty and make the brownies dense and suuuuuuper fudgy. Gets 'em every time. Drooling yet? I am. :)
Baking requires a keen attention to detail and a strict adherence to ingredient proportion. It's edible chemistry, a series of ingredient reactions designed to evoke a very specific result, and anyone who knows me knows I tend to run screaming in the opposite direction of anything that even remotely smells of Chemistry. I consider cooking to be more amorphous, the amount of each ingredient can be adjusted to taste, for cooking time, for availability, etc. It's less precise aspects attract me to it, and I feel less constrained and more free to be creative. Baking makes me feel corralled, claustrophobic, even.
However, there are exceptions to every rule and even I have a few confectioneries up my sleeves. Since these particular attempts are going to be few and far between, I figured it would do good to share my absolute favorite dessert right away: BROWNIES.
Above and beyond any other sweet I've ever tried, brownies continue to take the cake (pardon the pun) and melt my heart. Sure, brownies-not-from-a-box are spectacular, but even I have learned how to doctor the Betty Crockers and produce a dark, melty, rich, pan of ooey-gooey brownies*. On the whole, I am not an indulger of the dessert course. I prefer savory foods to sweet, but there are a select few "dolci" I cannot resist: creme brulee, sorbet, gelato, certain cakes, and brownies! This particular day is not a day for from-a-box-brownies. Today, I hearken back to the days of my childhood and reproduce the homemade brownies my mom used to make.
I call my mom every single day. Usually I chatter away about some kind of nonsense (God bless her for listening to my rambling), and she tells me about the late-breaking crisis at work, or updates me on the fam. But mostly, we talk about food. There's rarely a day I don't ask her what she's making, and we usually end up talking about my latest attempt in the kitchen, how it worked out, will I email her the recipe? This day was no exception. I dialed her number on my cell phone with a single purpose: to get her brownie recipe. I remember being little, standing on a footstool at the kitchen counter, breaking up bars of unsweetened chocolate into a bowl for melting, mixing it with the sugar, and waiting, at the oven door, with a salivating mouth, for those brownies to come out, piping hot (my brother will likely claim that I have made up this memory, like I allegedly have all my others). And now, I'm all grown up, no step stool needed (just an apron, I'm really messy when flour is involved), and I want to make them on my own.
[Sidebar: that last phrase, "I want to make them on my own" is at the heart of a lot of what I attempt in the kitchen. When I first started cooking on my own, I made what I knew, what I remembered from my childhood. I made the things my mom made for me. That basic repertoire of recipes has built a solid foundation for me to grow from. Those recipes of yore gave me the confidence to try new things, to branch out, to be brave. And that's really really cool, but I've been making all these things FROM her, without her, and sometimes, like today, that can make me a little bit nostalgic, and a little bit sad.]
My mother so faithfully revealed her source of her luscious brownie spell: The Fannie Farmer Cookbook, published in 1965 (some good things don't ever have to change). I scribbled down the simple ingredients, the simple directions, had a quick chat about perhaps adjusting the cooking time, and then, I was off!
Let me just say that this really IS seriously simple--almost jokingly so, and since I usually have 6 out of the 7 ingredients on hand at all times, it cost me $2.49 for the chocolate--the same price as the box version, and exponentially better-tasting. This recipe is doubled from the original, and makes about 12 large brownies.
Brownies
40z. unsweetened chocolate
1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter
2 cups sugar
4 eggs (large, at room temp)
1 cup flour
2 tsp vanilla extract
pinch of salt
Preheat oven to 325 F. Melt the chocolate and butter together in a bowl (this can be done on the stove in a double boiler, or in the microwave). Once melted, let stand/cool for about 5 min. In the meantime, combine the sugar, eggs, flour, vanilla and salt in a bowl, whisk together. Pour in the melted chocolate/butter mixture, and stir until everything is well incorporated. Pour into 9x13 baking pan, bottom lined with wax paper, sides greased. Bake for 30-40 min or until toothpick comes out clean from center of pan. Cool completely, slice to desired size (or don't slice at all. Personally, I feel the perfect brownie size is equivalent to the size of the pan it was baked in), and indulge.
Crumbly, light, yet rich and chewy all at once, these brownies sort of melt down in your mouth. Best to eat them with a large glass of very cold milk, or warm, under a scoop of vanilla ice cream. All things considered, I think I did this particular brand of nostalgia justice. Only thing missing was la mia madre.
Buon Appetito!
*The secret to making from-the-box-brownies really really good--good enough to fool all of your friends into thinking they were made from scratch--is: semi-sweet chocolate chips. Buy a box of regular fudge brownies (sans additions), and a 12 oz. bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips. Make the brownies according to package instructions, and then stir in the ENTIRE bag of chips. DO NOT adjust temp or cooking time; the chips will get melty and make the brownies dense and suuuuuuper fudgy. Gets 'em every time. Drooling yet? I am. :)
