Brownies Gone Neon

Yesterday, Rachel and I decided to make brownies for our friend Bill from scratch. This was a challenge both logistically (we are spazzes) and emotionally (I've given up sweets for Lent). Nonetheless, we prevailed--despite a fateful vanilla miscalculation that I'll just describe as that classic "oh...a TEAspoon" scenario.

The Food:

We used a recipe from epicurious.com (originally from Gourmet). It involved:

3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 oz semisweet chocolate, chopped
1 oz unsweetened chocolate, chopped
1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 large eggs

We didn't have brown sugar, or unsweetened chocolate, but we substituted regular granulated sugar and sweetened chocolate. Unfortunately, I can't really tell you if these substitutions worked or not, since I never actually tried the brownies. Anyway, we preheated the oven to 350°F, then stirred and melted the chocolate and butter over low heat on the stove. After letting the mixture cool a bit, we stirred in the (not brown) sugar, (too much) vanilla, and eggs--then beat the mixture until it was smooth. Finally, we stirred in the flour, spread the stuff in a pan, and put it into the oven for 30 min.
We decorated the brownies using frosting (let's pretend it was homemade)--in a ziploc bag, mixed with food coloring. I'm still not sure why we felt the need to spell out "BILL," but I'm pretty pleased that it happened.

And The People Who Ate It (Rachel and Bill):

The People Who Could Only Inhale the Brownie Odors Longingly (Me):


If anyone could take 3+ hours to produce a decent batch of brownies, it's me and Rachel. We were exhausted and Bill was surprised, so all in all, we felt pretty accomplished!

Chipotle brownies

For rehearsal tonight I made a double recipe of chipotle brownies. They turned out well and the spices work great, but unfortunately the chipotle makes it harder to devour many brownies in rapid succession, which has always been my method of choice. Some other people might consider this a perk of the recipe.

I got the recipe from Smitten Kitchen, except I also toasted some hazelnuts while the chocolate was melting and then added them to the batter.

And the thing that ate the brownies: