Despite some overwhelming, round, and delicious evidence to the contrary, I don't get all that enthusiastic about making desserts. I would LIKE to be, though, so I gave yet another recipe from The Mighty Spice Cookbook a go. I figured, "I've made brownies before. How tough could these be?"
Turns out this may have been one of the toughest recipes I've yet encountered. In my defense, though, I don't think it's all my fault.
The recipe calls for melted chocolate. Like, you're supposed to take some 70% dark chocolate and melt it in a double boiler. Now I don't have a double boiler, so I had to... improvise.
MacGyver would be ashamed.
By the way, I may have to change my whole attitude about desserts now. I'd do the chocolate melting thing again in a HEARTBEAT. Melted, liquid chocolate? That's almost like pornography. I'm seriously surprised that Willy Wonka isn't rated R.
I find that, when I bake, I spend a LOT of time mixing. Since I don't have a mixer, I do it all by hand with a big plastic spoon in a comically oversized blue bowl. I'd invest in a hand mixer but... well... me and cooking instruments don't really mix well.
I said "mix well"... Man, I'm an idiot.
The recipe said to pour all the batter into a 9-inch square cake pan. So I did... and I wound up with brownies that were about five-inches thick and took an hour to actually BAKE. So the recipe lied to me.
I wouldn't call the cinnamon and clove brownies a complete FAILURE, but it's definitely a recipe I'd need to try again. With a wider cake pan. And maybe a legitimate double-boiler. And a KitchenAid or something.
4 comments:
Hehehe - I always appreciate a good chuckle at a reminder of "the mixer incident."
Clove brownies...I dunno about that...seems like a contradiction of tastes...but you have excellent taste and if you say it is good, I must trust you.
You know you can fashion a double boiler (that works better than the real thing) out of a sauce pan and a glass mixing bowl that's a little bit bigger so it sits on top of, but not in the water, right?
(if this doesn't make sense I'll totally show you some time-or you can just watch clips of Barefoot Contessa making chocolate covered strawberries on foodnetwork.com.
You know I don't have a glass mixing bowl, right?
Martha Stewart is ashamed of you right now? No glass mixing bowl? When is your birthday young man? We need to remedy this ASAP!
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