Another Good Day

As the title suggests, it was another good day in the kitchen overall. There were a few uh-oh and hmm moments, but everything worked out in the end. The brownies, in particular, were fabulous. So let's get straight to it, shall we? (Both recipes again came from allrecipes.com.)

I started with the Brownies because they would take longer in the oven. I was curious at one point because the instructions say to combine the flour, cocoa powder, and salt, but then they say to add the flour mixture to the cocoa mixture. Is it just me, or is this a little confusing?

The only snafu I ran into was when the batter appeared dry and crumbly. Of course, then I went back to the recipe and realized I'd forgotten to add the eggs. Sort of important. I worried for a fraction of a second about adding the eggs at the end since the recipe calls for them to be added before the flour-cocoa mixture. But I figured you add eggs to dry mix when you make brownies from a box, so I went ahead and just added them at the end. Now, baking is a precise endeavor, but sometimes you can fudge it (no pun intended). Thankfully, this was one of those times.

I also took advantage of tonight's brownie baking to try a technique described in the America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook. If you've ever made brownies before (and if you haven't, you really should), you know that they can stick to the pan no matter what you try to do. Then you end up with brownie mush which, though still yummy, isn't abundantly appetizing to look at and is hard to transport if you're making them to take somewhere. Enter the brilliant people at America's Test Kitchen and the aluminum foil (or parchment paper) sling. Basically, you use two piece of aluminum foil to line the pan, laying them one on top of the other perpendicularly so as to make a T or +, being sure to use pieces long enough to leave about four inches of excess over the sides. You want to make sure to get it into the corners and to keep it as smooth as you can. Unless wavy-edged brownies is what you're going for, I guess. Spray the foil with cooking spray before putting the batter in so the brownies won't stick and then, once they've baked and cooled, just lift the whole thing out of the pan by the flaps of excess foil on the sides.

My foil didn't come out as smooth as the ATK chefs, but I was just happy to get it into the corners properly.

Not only does the sling lift your brownies out of the pan, but they don't stick to anything and the pan is still clean! Genius, right? I thought so.

I'll never make brownies without a sling again!

Inspired by a friend's recent baking, I made a slight modification to this recipe and sprinkled coarse sea salt on top for a little salty-sweet action. Of course, having never done this before and afraid of using so much salt that the brownies would be rendered inedible, I erred on the conservative side. In other words, I didn't use enough sea salt so the salty-sweet only comes through on some bites. But, with or without it, these brownies are incredible.

The recipe name isn't kidding, these are bombshell brownies.

Chocolatey, chewy, fudgy, gooey. Basically every good word you can think of to describe a brownie is covered here. I cannot recommend this recipe highly enough. And I can't help but wonder if they would've been even better if I'd added the eggs at the right time. Guess I'll find out next time!


I also made cookies, cookies that go by many names. When I first discovered them, it was under the name Wedding Cake Cookie, but they're also known as Mexican Wedding Cookies, Russian Teacakes, and, in the case of this recipe, Snowballs. Choose your favorite, they taste good no matter what you call them.

The recipe I used calls for pecans, but I've seen others that call for pecans or walnuts. I happened to have walnuts on hand, so that's what I used. But I think I may do half and half next time, just for kicks.

The cookies are good, but I ran into two minor issues. The first was that I only used half the amount of nuts called for and that still seemed like a bit too much. Perhaps this is because I used walnuts instead of pecans, I'm not sure. Either way, it wasn't a big deal, I just saved the other half cup of walnuts for future baking. The second glitch I ran into was the number of cookies I was able to make from the recipe. It states that one full batch should make 5 dozen cookies - I got almost 3 dozen. This is odd for me because I'm normally able to get MORE cookies out of a recipe than it states I should. I'm not sure if there is a typo in the recipe stating that each cookie should be made with a tablespoon of dough where it really means teaspoon, or if my version of a tablespoon is simply too big. Regardless, my cookies baked in the same amount of time and taste great. They're just a little on the large side compared to what I'm used to for this type of cookie.

Powdered sugary goodness!

A word of caution (which isn't nearly as ominous as it sounds): let the cookies cool for a few minutes on the pan after baking before you move them to the powdered sugar. They're very fragile when they first come out and can break quite easily. They'll still be plenty hot to adhere the sugar after a few minutes, so don't be an Overzealous Olive/Ollie unless you just want an excuse to eat all the cookies.

Nobody likes a broken cookie.

I look forward to tomorrow's baking, and I hope you do, too. And if you have any recommendations for me, be sure to leave them in the comments!