I’ve been thinking about this, and I think it’s only fair that we establish a few ground rules, oh lovely test subjects of mine. Really, I promise you that they’re for your own protection as there are a few things in this world that I’ve tried multiple times to make and, well, they just never turn out – usually for the same reasons.
We could talk about the 10-hour turkey, but that’s a story best purged from memory. I will say this: if I invite you over for dinner and you show up at about the same time as the pizza delivery guy, well, you’ll know that I’ve learned from that college experience and thrown in the towel. Believe me, it’s for your own good.
Rule #1: tell me what type of pizza you like as a back-up. If there’s more than one of you invited for dinner, majority rules!
I promise you, it’s nothing I’ve done intentionally, it’s just that these items seem so incredibly easy to make that I just think that I can pop them in the oven and forget about them. An hour or so later, what I had envisioned to be a thing of beauty turns out to be a) a mushy pile of goo, b) flatter than the pancake I wasn’t intending to make, or c) charbroiled beyond recognition.
Most of the time, it turns out to be C, and those charbroiled little hockey pucks are usually brownies.
Thanks to some fabulous mixes out there, brownies should be one of the easiest things in the world to make. I remember when I was in high school – back when I had metabolism – that not a week went by without my parents or sister mixing up a yummy batch of ooey, gooey brownies for after-school snacks. I attempted it once, maybe twice, and after that, even the dog knew better than to wait in the kitchen for scraps.*
Somehow, though, I’ve never quite mastered the technique. I will say that I’m getting slightly better at it, but usually one out of every 10 batches turns out to be semi-edible, so really, we’re not talking about great odds here. Plus, the explanation of what happened to the brownies has gotten me into trouble at work. Did you know that, apparently, “Cajun Brownies,” is another term for “Hash Brownies”? Neither did I – until I was telling my coworkers why the promised treats (it was a birthday or something) didn’t come to work. I insisted that it wasn’t my fault because I had accidentally made, “Cajun brownies,” (meaning that the oven was on ‘broil’ instead of 350 – resulting in a layer of char that didn’t really add anything to the flavor), and the next thing I knew, I was being called into my boss’ office. I explained it away quickly, but it’s been five years since I attempted to make brownies for the coworkers, Cajun, “special,” or otherwise.
It goes without saying, then –
Rule #2: Don’t even attempt to ask me to make brownies.
Even the diet ones or the ones from the EZ Bake oven. I promise you, if there’s a way to screw it up, I will find it. If, despite these warnings, you insist on brownies, I am more than happy to buy some for you (or you can buy some for me) from Fairytale Brownies (
www.brownies.com – because it would be have to be that easy to remember). Now, these people know what they’re doing and have such confidence in their culinary abilities that they have no qualms about baking millions of brownies and shipping them all around the world. In addition to the traditional recipes, they’ve even kicked it up a notch and have perfected the art of putting such things as peanut butter and caramel in their brownies. Me? I’m still working on not burning down the kitchen with pecans. And Fairytale’s brownies come wrapped individually, so you can rest assured that I had nothing more to do with the preparation than the five minutes it took me to pick them out, give them my credit card, and press “confirm order.”
To be perfectly honest, I think it's best for all of us if we go this route. I can't guarantee that they're the "best thing" for the diet, but the absolute coolest part of WW is the fact that I can have what I want in moderation, and those brownie people are even helping me out with sugar-free selections. So really, yeah, I think this is the way we should go if you guys absolutely, positively want brownies.
Interestingly enough, I did learn that the brownie itself was born from a classic kitchen screw-up, and so I hold this story near and dear to my heart in the hopes that one day one of my own will make history (and not in that “Dateline NBC: When Kitchens Attack” sort of way). See, there was this harried woman in New England, Mildred Schrumpf, who was making a chocolate cake and either lost track of time, got distracted, or fell trap to any of the other excuses that I often use when I screw a recipe up beyond recognition. Either way, she forgot to toss the baking powder (no word if it was “Rolling’s Reliable”) into the mix. This resulted in a delicious cake that just happened to be on the flat side. Instead of wasting the ingredients or getting embarrassed, she just cut the dessert into little squares and tossed it on the table in a classic, “I totally meant to do that; if you don’t like it, tough,” sort of way.
Rule #3 (and this one is for your own protection I promise): Don’t ask me to pull a Mildred unless you're willing to disregard presentation. Because I will cut a slice out of whatever it is be sure that it’s edible or even safe to eat!
As I come up with more rules, interesting (read: totally banned) recipes, or cooking dramas (the fireman who lives next store has made me promise to warn him the next time I pull out the grill), I’ll keep you posted.
*Not that we regularly gave him scraps of chocolate because, as you know, it’s not good for dogs. But accidents happen, and he’s a fast-mover.
