She looks deceivingly beautiful and delicious, doesn’t she???!!!
I must make something very clear, this is not a recipe review. The following is totally all my bad and not Ina’s fault for me completely screwing up her brownies. This is one of the worst times of year for me when it comes to food. If you want to find out why, go here. If you want to hear how not to make brownies, continue reading.
I seem to have a curse when it comes to making brownies. I have had very limited success with them but when I heard that it was National Peanut Butter Day last week, I really, REALLY wanted to make some peanut butter brownies. At the time, I thought it was a good idea.
Ina’s recipe makes a huge sheet tray of brownies which I did not need so I attempted to divide the recipe in half and bake it in a much smaller dish. You begin by melting butter and chocolate in a double boiler.
It is here that all goes wrong. Yup, early on in the game… Normally I am really good at dividing recipes in half. But as you can see, there are only two eggs below with all that sugar, coffee and vanilla. When I went to go get the eggs, I mentally divided the six eggs called for in the recipe in half. By the time I got to the kitchen counter, I then divided the three eggs in half by adding one egg and yolk. Aren’t I so smart? Yes, my short term memory is that bad which is why I am always reading and re-reading a recipe as I make something. Except on National Peanut Butter Day. Bloody hell. So at this point, I am totally oblivious to my stupid mistake.
You stir in the melted butter and chocolate into the egg and sugar mixture, followed by flour, baking soda and salt that has been sifted together. Stir until just combined.
Toss chocolate chips with some flour and add to the batter. Pour into baking dish.
Add peanut butter and swirl together with the knife. At this point I thought to myself, this is going to taste amazing!
Excited, I put it in the oven for about 12 minutes, tapped a little like Ina’s says to do and then baked another 10 minutes or so. At some point, I started to feel weird. Like I knew something was wrong. I mentally went over my process and had the cold shock of what I had done creep up my spine. I felt sick and stupid at the same time and became too scared to look at the results when the timer went off. Do I really have to open that oven door?
Yeah, that just does not look right. My husband came home around this time and was able to eat the peanut butter chocolate goo because it was still warm and goopy. The next day it solidified enough so I could cut it out with a decorative biscuit cutter and top it with some frozen vanilla yogurt. You can pretty much dress up any disaster for a sweet photo, doesn’t mean it will taste good.
Aww… it looks pretty, too bad it tastes like hell! I took one bite of this and it was a grainy sugar bomb. My husband ate the last of this piece but the rest ended up in the compost. What a shame! What waste…
Yes, the winter foodie blues are here and the gremlins are messing with my frozen brain. Life with fibromyalgia can be so frustrating. Normally the kitchen is one place I kind of don’t screw things up but during the winter all bets are off.
Disasters, here I come.
Aw, that’s awful. I hate it when things go wrong like that. I’ve made major errors when halving or doubling a recipe as well… it just makes you ill to your stomach for more than one reason!
Sorry to hear about your disaster. Hopefully you will try the recipe again on a better-food-day.
I made those chocolate chip recipes again from Mark Bittman’s book and they were really good – but of course the dough always tastes better than the finished cookie so sometimes it’s hard to get it to the baking stage… 🙂
Oh, Suzie! I made a batch of corn muffins one time and completely forgot to add one ingredient – sugar! (They were edible with jam, but barely.)
I also one time made a batch of chili (my first) and thought I’d been so smart, saving myself money on spices by getting my chili powder in the imports section… only to find out when I tasted the chili that it was inedible, it was so hot! I looked at my bag of spice again, and there it was, Chilli Powder… and in small print under it, cayenne pepper!!! I’d added 3 tablespoons of cayenne pepper to this chili, which had maybe 1 pound of ground beef!
If I’ve told that story before, I hope you don’t mind hearing it again, Suzie. I’m hoping that hearing of another food disaster helps to bring a smile to your face. *hugs* and a cup of herbal tea for you!
Kenora, I think I would have LOVED that chili! I always have to up the spice level on my chili – it’s never too hot! 🙂
Susie, we all have days like that. I recently turned on my oven to pre-heat for a cake, forgetting that I had dough rising in the oven. Luckily the glass bowl stayed in one piece. Once my panic subsided, I drew inspiration from Julia Child and decided to patch up my disaster. I removed the crust already forming on top,(the oven had reached 295ºF by then) and transferred the humongous ball of warm dough into the two loaf pans. The gods must have been smiling on me because the bread was actually edible if not pretty.
On another note, what the heck is happening with the FN site? Not only have your photos not appeared, but I noticed that the whole brownie post minus the photo, disappeared on their site. I’m so disappointed that these technical difficulties have not been corrected.
OK another foodie disaster story. My childhood friend (also Suzie)made some homemade mac’n’cheese for us for lunch. We were still in our teens, very inexperienced in the kitchen. She misread the recipe, and instead of putting 3 tablespoons of flour in the cheese sauce, she put 3 CUPS!! She was stumped as to why it turned out so gross. Once we figured out what she did wrong we howled for an hour. We then proceeded to make some KD and Koolaid.
On that note, I’ve always used Martha Stewart’s brownie recipes and they’ve always turned out fantastic. Also, most of her brownie recipes generally make an 8inch or 9 inch square pan, so no need for halving recipes. Honestly, your brownies look pretty darn tasty through the computer screen, goo kinda sounds yummy 🙂
Thanks for the support everyone! My brain short circuited that day, so frustrating. Michelle, I believe you would eat that chilli but holy cow?! I don’t know how people handle food that spicy. Anna, I hope FNC fixes the situation soon, I am frustrated too but I know they are working on it. Val said she would upload the photos herself.
Love the foodie disaster stories, thank you so much for sharing and Ava, so cool you had a childhood friend with my name, LOL. And wow, 3 cups of flour? I would pay to see those results! I will try Martha’s brownies next, thank you for the recipe referral!