It's a while since I've felt that I have the energy to do baking for fun, but for the past few weeks I'd been thinking about making some brownies - ever since I found my daughter's favourite brownie recipe open in a tab on my phone. No matter how much I wanted, somehow summoning up the will to actually do any baking has felt like too much to manage, but finally on Sunday evening it happened. It was supposed to be a joint effort, but I suspect we'd have differing views on how shared the process actually was... Be that as it may, by the end of the evening we had a generous slab of oozingly delicious, rich brownies, drizzled generously with melted white chocolate.
For a very simple recipe, I somehow managed to complicate things rather. Firstly I discovered that we didn't have any brown sugar, so improvised with a mix of caster sugar and golden caster sugar. Then while adding the eggs into the beaten sugar and butter, half an eggshell slipped into the mix along with the egg, while the mixer was running (of course!). Fortunately I managed to stop the mixer quickly and got most of the shell out, hoping that there wouldn't be too many crunchy 'surprises' in the eating experience. Oops...! I would have started again, but we had no spare eggs at all, so it was definitely a case of doing the best I could to rescue things.
Inexplicably, I decided not to use the proper scale pan while weighing out the dry ingredients, instead just using the cup measure. So it will come as no surprise to anyone that by the time the batter was complete, there was a generous dusting of sugar, flour and cocoa powder over the counter.
The misadventures didn't finish there. As I went to put the brownies in the oven, I discovered that I'd automatically turned it off when I took our dinner out, even though I'd intended to leave it on. Unsurprisingly, that made the baking process take rather longer than expected; instead of the predicted 25 mins, I think it took around 40 minutes in total. It's interesting though, that because of the way the oven heated while the batter was in it, the edges are slightly chewier than normal, but are absolutely not overcooked at all.
Once it was finally baked and out of the oven, it was all worthwhile. Daughter melted some white chocolate and drizzled it very generously over the top, and once it had cooled down enough that I was allowed to cut it, it was absolutely worth the wait: a light crunch on the top, slight chewiness from the edge, and a soft, fudgy middle. Perfection! It's rich and gooey, and keeps superbly in an airtight(-ish) tin - 5 days later, it's still just as good.
So all in all, I'd have to say this seems like a wonderfully robust recipe, and I'll definitely try it again. It needs nothing that I don't normally have in my cupboard and fridge, even if I was running low on several things this time (I haven't even mentioned supplementing the butter with a bit of our usual spread, or the hunt for a new bottle of vanilla essence in the depths of the baking cupboard...) If you like brownies, and don't have a lot of confidence in your skill, this is definitely the recipe for you. I've thoroughly destruction tested it, and can absolutely vouch for its resilience.
I've just started a new audiobook which is based around a baking competition, so hopefully I'll be inspired to do some more baking soon - with less improvisation along the way!
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