September 28, 2007

Week 30: Dodge Darts

It's brownie, no wait, its a car! Who cares what it is but don't get out of Dodge without one of these brownies!

Analysis

I am perplexed by this recipe. I can't understand why it is in the book. It is about as straightforward as a brownie recipe can be. Nothing strange, different or extreme, except they have a weird name.

Of course I needed to go to the store. All the eggs got used up for breakfast and I was out of baking chocolate. The trip was relatively quick and uneventful.

I had a helper for this recipe. Emily decided that she was going to be my assistant. She got aprons out of the drawer for both of us and opened the eggs and counted out the right amount. She unwrapped the chocolate and put it in the microwave, measured the sugar and flour, and stirred the chocolate to melt it completely. These brownies almost made themselves!

There was absolutely nothing eventful that happened during this recipe. It was even proportioned for a 9x13 pan, so I didn't even have to do any math. And the cooking time was spot on. I'm still trying to figure out how these got into the book. They got a 'WTF' subcategory just because of the name. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to make them in the shape of a car or Kansas.

Modifications

None.

Improvements


My Rating - scale of 1-10


Posted by jamm at 08:10 AM | Comments (1)

June 15, 2007

Week 23: Molasses Mint Brownies

Molasses and Mint, Mint and Molasses???? I'm not sure what to say about these, but I hope you can tell by the title that we are back on track this week with another recipe from the Good, the Bad and the Ugly (guess which category this one falls into?). Well, at least it meets all the criteria to be included in the ever enlarging 'WTF' category.

Analysis

As I was making these, I was brought back to the other truly disastrous brownie recipe in the book, Macadamia Mocha Brownies. Once again, there was nary a smidge of melted chocolate to be found. And, good lord, the recipe called for melted MARGARINE (melted and then cooled???, no less). We all know my feelings about that ingredient. I guess I can't complain, I asked for something in the WTF category. At least the book has a high percentage of those recipes.

The thing I had difficulty in finding for this recipe were the chocolate mint wafers. My first thought was "ooh, Girl Scout Thin Mints." But then I realized that those cookies were too yummy to waste on this recipe. As I thought about it, I decided that I was really unclear on exactly what was meant by 'wafer'. Wafer can refer to a lot of things, but the only cookies specifically labeled 'wafer' are those ones that are like thin layers of ice cream cone with the creme filling in between and come in 3 flavors: vanilla, chocolate and pink. I read this line in the recipe and thought "Well, they must make them with green creme filling as well." It must be some weird regional thing because My Kroger doesn't carry them. I had to settle on some Thin Mint wanna-bes called Grasshoppers, but hey they had a picture of Johnny Depp on them, so it was ok. (That was for you, Laura).

At least this was a one bowl recipe. I dumped everything in, mixed it up, broke up the cookies, mixed them in and reached for the nuts. At this moment, for some strange reason, I glanced at the instructions one more time and groaned. I wasn't supposed to mix the nuts in, I was supposed to put them in between two layers of the batter. UGH! After I wrestled with smoothing out the top layer without churning up chopped nuts, I popped the pan in the oven and cooked it for 45 minutes.

These brownies were a bit weird to make and smelled a bit 'heavy' while they were cooking, but the batter was strangely addictive. Must have been the Johnny Depp cookies.

The brownies actually taste ok. The texture and initial sensation is one of eating chocolate chip bar cookies. The nuts add crunch and the chopped up cookies add little bits of minty, chocolately smushiness that is incongruous with the other textures, but at the same time, sort of works. These are a strange little dessert that belongs at a family picnic, but not on a list of best brownies.

Modifications

Do I have to say it? I substituted butter for margarine. That should probably go under 'Improvements'.

Improvements

Um, adding or changing anything would just be way too weird.

My Rating - scale of 1-10