The KBAL Brownie Initiative

Analysis

All I can say is "Where's the lemon?" You would think I left it out. It is so well hidden as to almost be not there. I re-read the instruction three times and it definitely said only 1 1/2 teaspoons.

Between the 40 cupcakes for the birthday party, the 40 cupcakes for the Girl Scout meeting with custom chocolate candy toppers, wrapping birthday presents and final preparation for the Thinking Day ceremony, it is a wonder these brownies got made this week. And I'm still trying to taste the lemon. (It was a nice one too, not too tart and very lemony)

This recipe was pretty simple and almost hit the one bowl mark. (It would have been only one bowl if I used the hand mixer and not the KitchenAid.) Super simple brownie recipe, but only 4 ounces of chocolate. At least this one was sized for the 9x13 pan from the start. The one thing that was a pain was juicing the lemon. I know, I know, I could have bought the stuff in the little plastic lemon, but that always goes bad because you can't use it fast enough. The need to sell single serving lemon juices, such as a 12 pack of 1 teaspoon servings, each individually wrapped in little pouches, like string cheese. That way, you could freeze them and then thaw when you needed them and not end up wasting so much. But I digress.

As distracted as I was, I checked the amount of lemon again, because it sure as heck did not seem like enough. And it was only in the frosting, which was even weirder. Speaking of weird, the frosting was strange. It was like a cross between a true buttercream and a seven-minute frosting. There was an egg in it, butter and powdered sugar and the whole mess got cooked on the stove (minus the double boiler). I did forget to mix in the pecans, so those went on top. Hey, I was busy! Maybe they were the secret to bringing out the lemon flavor.

The taste was 'eh'. I will not eat a second one until someone returns the lemon flavor.

• Prep time: 45 minutes


• Cooking time: 35 minutes


• Total time: 2 hours (includes cooling and frosting)

Modifications

Improvements

More lemon. Everyone repeat after me: 'More Lemon!' Lemon zest in the brownie would help.

My Rating - scale of 1-10

• PITA Rating: 7 (The lemon juicing on top of everything else just pushed me over the edge.)
• Difficulty Rating: 4
• Recipe Complexity (over a basic no-frills brownie): 5
• Texture: 5
• Flavor: 2
• Overall Rating: 5