Finally Some Brownies

Hello all! Welcome to this week's edition of "I never have any of the stuff I need for baking!" Allow me to explain. I was invited to a friend's house for dinner last week so, of course, it is only polite and proper to arrive with a dessert. Unfortunately, I didn't have any good reference points for what the family might enjoy so I was flying blind a bit. I seriously considered my first attempt at pie but then decided that there was too much room for error there. I didn't know the situation with nut allergies or dislikes so finally I just threw up my hands and found a recipe for Ultimate Fudgy Brownies in the America's Test Kitchen cookbook. Everybody likes brownies.

Brownies. No problem, right? Wrong. First, I checked the ingredient list. It called for bittersweet chocolate, which naturally, I didn't have. But that's ok! They say you can substitute semisweet for the bittersweet. Perfect except...I'm out of chocolate. I don't even know how it happened but it did. I considered using a different recipe but then I decided to suck it up and go to the store. Before I left, I remembered to check the rest of the list. Ingredients: check. Baking implements: not so much. This recipe called for an 8 inch square baking pan. Searching for a baking pan, searching for a baking pan...nope, nothing. I briefly started doing the volume math to utilize my 13x9 inch baking pan and then decided that I'd probably need the pan eventually so I chose to buy an 8 inch square pan. Plus, my brain didn't really want to do the math.

So, last Wednesday, when it was about a hundred degrees in CT, I headed out to go to the store and to go to the gym. I got all the way to the supermarket before realizing that leaving chocolate in my car in 100 degree heat was a terrible idea. So I went to the gym first like a good girl. (Go me!) Then I picked up the pan and the chocolate (bittersweet and semisweet so I'm prepared for next time) and I was ready to go.

The first step I took was melting the butter, chocolate, and cocoa in the double boiler. That took a little while but I knew it would so that's why I did it first. See how smart I'm getting? While that was going, I combined the other ingredients (namely, sugar, eggs, vanilla and salt) and whisked them up real good. As the chocolate still wasn't completely melted, I set about preparing the pan for baking.

Here, America's Test Kitchen does something interesting. They reference the fact that brownies are a pain to cut and get out of the pan without getting them all messed up. Good point! That is usually a pain! I've heard tricks about putting the brownies in the freezer or trying to flip them upside down but nothing has been truly foolproof yet. This method is. ATK recommends a tin foil sling. That's right. Picture one piece of tin foil crossing the pan in one direction and a second piece of foil crossing the pan rotated 90 degrees from the first piece. This way, when you're done baking, you just pick up the bottom piece of foil and lift the whole thing out of the pan and onto the cutting board. I can't even tell you how well this worked. It was like magic. I highly recommend this method and hope I was clear in explaining it. Here's a picture of the nicely cut brownies in their tin foil sling:

As far as taste, these really are fudgy brownies. I think I may have overcooked them a bit because the sides were a little too crispy but the middles were all fudgy and delightful. Wouldn't do a thing differently with these brownies and they were easy and yummy so I'd definitely recommend these and would probably make them again. Success! And next time, I promise something more challenging! Really!

A Disney Moment: Beauty and the Beast


Ah, another classic. I've briefly discussed Beauty and the Beast already but now you get the in depth review. As I've mentioned, this movie ranks 2/5 right behind Little Mermaid. Little Mermaid just has a better villain. That was pretty much the tipping point for me. I still love Belle best and the music is still superb. But for some reason I was just more drawn to Little Mermaid than Beauty and the Beast. I'm not sure why. Oh wait, here's a theory...

I went to see Beauty and the Beast in 3D on the big screen when it came out. (Yes, that's how far behind I am with writing about these movies.) My sister and I timed it perfectly. We got up to this film just as it was being released and went on a weekday morning to the movies. A quick note on the 3D. I loved Lion King in 3D and I think Finding Nemo and Little Mermaid will all be great on 3D releases but I just didn't think Beauty and the Beast lent itself to the 3D conversion well. Not enough sweeping landscapes. It was fine but I didn't think the 3D added anything. Also, there was the matter of the creeper at the theater.

That's right, creeper. Middle aged guy came to the theater alone wearing a trenchcoat. Not strange yet. I see movies by myself all the time and I'd hate for someone to judge me for it. And the trenchcoat is an irrelevant point without the following information. Throughout the movie he was fidgeting constantly and a few times got up to presumably (?) use the restroom. Any one of these things: not creepy. All of them together: totally creepy. So, perhaps I was too distracted by the man "enjoying" the movie to truly enjoy it myself and maybe that contributed to my lower ranking on Beauty and the Beast than I might have expected. Also, eww.