The KBAL Brownie Initiative

Analysis

When I saw that the recipe called for 1 cup of Brazil nuts, I thought I was going to have to buy about twenty of the tins of mixed nuts just to get enough to put in the 2 cups I would need for the double batch. Why is it that they only have the loose mixed nuts available at Thanksgiving and Christmas? Who thought that was a good idea. And why do they assume that I want my nuts salted and oily?

Suprise, suprise, my local Kroger came through for me. In the produce section was one last bag of whole, shelled, unblanched Brazil nuts in the exact amount I needed. The nut goddess must have been smiling on me yesterday. I wasn't so lucky with the cashews (I had to buy the kind in a tin, but at least they had the 'lightly salted' kind)

Of course this brownie recipe would not be complete without a set of multiple complications. It was about 7pm, dinner was over and I was preparing to make brownies, but I found I had one small problem. I left the recipe sitting on my desk at work. No problem, I thought. I'll load the girls in the car and head to work, pick up the recipe and then swing by the store. This is when I discovered I didn't have my keys.

We had been on vacation last week and I left my keys with my neighbors so that they could come in and keep my lizard alive (the cats can fend for themselves). I called their house, but of course they weren't home. I tried to call my husband, who had just left, so he could come back and give me his key to my car. But of course, he left his phone on the kitchen counter. There is nothing more frustrating than trying to call your husband when you need something and hear the phone ringing right behind you!

At this point I remembered that Tony was working late. I hopped online and to my relief found out that he was on IM. Tony was an angel. He ran upstairs and found the recipe buried on my messy desk, got into a fist fight with the Xerox machine on the 3rd floor, and was finally able to scan and email the recipe to me. Everyone needs to thank Tony, because there would be no brownies today without him.

Now, to get to the store. With no car and two kids in tow, I weighed my options. The bus would take too long and walking was out of the question (can you hear the whining?). So we all hopped on our bikes at 8:45 and rode off to Kroger. Since I didn't have my keys, I didn't have any way to lock my bike, so I forced the kids to stay outside by the bike rack while I ran into the store. (I should actually make this the way I grocery shop from now on, it was perfect and no one asked me to buy anything extra) The girls got Dairy Queen afterwards for all of their help. Ok, it was a bribe to get them on their bikes and to the grocery store.

I still needed to get one thing, the coffee liquer, but I needed to put the kids to bed more. So I went home thinking that my husband would be home soon, since his class got out at 9pm and it was now 9:15. Forty-five minutes later, the kids are asleep and he's still not home. Turns out his class doesn't get done until 10pm (he must have been bummed to realize that he had to sit there for another hour). When he walked in the door I turned him right around and sent him to the liquor store for the coffee liquer and got busy mixing.

Making the recipe was super easy! It was almost one bowl if I could melt chocolate and butter in my Kitchenaid bowl. It has a lot of eggs (8 total for the double batch) along with the prerequisite sugar, butter, chocolate and flour. Bananas, Brazil nuts, cinnamon, cashews and raw sugar complete the dish. It weighs a ton and had to cook for 1 hour and 10 minutes. It smells heavenly and survived the bike ride in.

• Prep time: 2.5 hours (includes the 1 hour trip to the store and the hour waiting for my husband. If you had everything, it would only take about 20 minutes.)
• Cooking time: 70 minutes
• Total time: 3.5 hours

Modifications

None.

Improvements

Nothing that I can think of. These seem like they are perfect and actually belong in this book!

My Rating - scale of 1-10

• PITA Rating: 4 (I did have to go to the store)
• Difficulty Rating: 3
• Recipe Complexity (over a basic no-frills brownie): 4
• Texture:
• Flavor:
• Overall Rating: