"Basic Baking" Recipe 2

Fantasy Brownies

I made brownies this morning! They are SOOOO good! (and that's saying something, because I'm not really a "brownie" person. I prefer cakes and/or ice cream for dessert)

This is the first recipe in Basic Baking and now, having tried them, I know WHY they are called "Fantasy Brownies": because they are like a fantasy in your mouth when you eat them. Yum!

But let me start at the beginning...

This recipe calls for: unsweetend chocolate, unsalted butter, eggs, granulated sugar, light brown sugar, all-purpose flour, and salt.

It was a very easy recipe to follow. All I had to do was melt the chocolate (which, granted can get tricky if you don't do it right, but I was fine with it) and butter, beat the eggs in a separate bowl, add in the other ingredients (in steps), and mix it all together. VERY simple, which I suppose is why it's the first recipe in the book.

When I started, the first thing I did was gather all my ingredients (adding and mixing things together is MUCH easier when everything is already lined up on the counter, ready to go). Then I simply followed the directions in the recipe, added everything as I was told, and poured in all into an already-greased baking pan. From the time I gathered the ingredients to the time the pan went into the oven was about 20-30 minutes. Once the brownies came out of the oven, I let them cool for a while before tasting them.

Ok, now how to describe them? Well, the first thing I noticed was that they were very moist and... light. What I mean by "light" is that the brownie didn't give me a heavy, lump feeling in my stomach after I ate it. It was light and fluffy, almost cake-like (but different), AND they ended up with these nice swirls of white in them. The author of the book, Lora Brody, has said that over-mixing can cause recipes not to come out right, so I was worried about mixing them too much and ended up with not mixing them quite long enough, but the up side was the slight swirl effect on the top of the brownies.

So... Below is a picture of my wonderful "Fantasy Brownies". Not sure if you'll be able to see the swirls very well, but trust me, they were there.

Well, now that the first recipe is complete, my next baking attempt will be another type of brownie. These are called "Birthday Cake Brownies" and I might try to make those sometime next week. I want to finish off the ones that I have before I make another dessert.