The S'mores Brownies That Could Have Been.

Let me start of by saying one thing. I meant well. I was so jazzed about making these brownies and I totally murdered them. But as I said in my last post, I'm going to tell you about it & what I did wrong.

Recently, I bought the Joy The Baker Cookbook & was pretty stoked on getting started immediately. I figured the S'mores Brownies would probably be my safest bet to start out with & was feeling pretty optimistic.

Not pictured: Salt. Pictured: Gaston creeping in the back.

It started simple enough, mix the flour, baking powder, and salt together in a bowl. Okay, cool. Got it. Next, melt the unsweetened chocolate & butter together over a double boiler. I'm sorry. What? This is when I had to Google what that was. When I realized that I had to improvise, I started to panic. This is when David swooped in and showed me what to use. Great. Moving on.

Don't be fooled, I wiped everything down before I took the photo.

Once the chocolate was all smooth, I added the granulated & brown sugar. Crap. This pan is way too small for all this sugar. Again, panic set in. Especially since I have to add 5 EGGS to the pan. So, I did my best & it was almost overflowing. Totally brimming the top. Why didn't I transfer into another pan, you ask? Because that would have been too easy, obviously.

Jean-Luc likes to help

After it was pretty much mixed together & there was a chocolately mess all over the stove, I added it to the dry ingredients of before. Folded it all together, added the crushed up graham crackers and poured it into the greased 9x13 pan. Dot with marshmallows & I did it! Uhh...

Trying to pose this stuff for max visual stimulation.

 Except that is clearly not a 9x13 pan. I didn't realize this until after I poured it in. Then I realized that I don't actually have a 9x13 pan (I went and bought one yesterday). I figured it was no big deal and went with it. The oven had already been pre-heated to 350* and I pushed into the oven for the 30 minutes it called for.

Time in the oven.

 At this point I cleaned up the gigantic mess I made. All the chocolate splattered everywhere, I flour all over the counter (and somehow my cat), and washed the pans I used. At 30 minutes, I took it out. No dice. Not done. Well, it said 30-40 minutes. 10 more minutes in and out? No, still not done.

Time out.

It took it almost 55 minutes to get done & I knew that It wasn't going to be the best. I stared at it for a long time before doing anything. Clearly, I know all my mistakes I made (biggest being the pan size) and thought about making a new one the next day. But, decided that wasn't needed. The marshmallows are clearly darker than they should have and it tasted more like a dry cake than a brownie.

Fin.

Lessons learned:
1. Figure out what size pan you need before you begin.
2. The recipe for this on Joy's website is much easier to follow than the one in the cookbook. I feel like steps were left out in the book, honestly & actually looked it up on her site after I made these. Example: in the book it makes it seem like you add the sugars and eggs to the chocolate in the pan you used for the double boiler, the site says you mix the chocolate into that stuff in a whole other bowl. Also, the book leaves out when you add the flour/baking powder/salt to everything. I just kind of made an educated guess (and, for once, was right).
3. I need more mixing bowls that can be used for a double boiler, apparently.
4. Store baked goods in a secure area*

I'll be doing another recipe this weekend, for sure. These brownies were going to go off to David's work (along with everything else I bake because, hello calories) but this morning I found the tin foil tore off the pan & brownies everywhere. *Thanks, cats. Is there anything you guys would like to see me (try) to make? Let me know!

xoxo

pics: my own!