March 3, 2006
The story of a batch of brownies
(or how to go terribly terribly wrong…)
It is always hard to tell where I go wrong when I am cooking or baking, mostly because there are so many opportunities for disaster to step in. First, I buy a UK edition of a cookbook because it’s the cheapest available online. I don’t think about what that means about measurements and temperatures. I don’t let that dissuade me from my project either. And then, on top of having to convert all my ingredients based on a probably very wrong estimation that 100 grams equals half a cup, I decide to break the recipe in half because a) it makes 48 brownies and b) my only cake tin is nowhere close to the size and proportions the recipe suggests. Another problem I just noticed is that I seem to think recipes “suggest” things rather than “demand” them. Anyway, after all the numbers madness, I decided to use the kind of sugar I have rather than caster sugar, to use chocolate chips rather than chocolate squares because they’re cheaper and poured in a tablespoon of salt rather than a teaspoon and had to scoop it out again. And picked up my flour cannister by its top and it nearly fell off, pouring flour behind my fridge. But I didn’t. And none of this is my attempt to become the Anti-Nigella, this crazed Bridget Jonesian wacky housewife (who is far too obsessed with archetypes from British popular culture). I didn’t mean for any of this to happen. I just wanted to be a domestic goddess. Anyway, the brownies are in the oven. This should be interesting. Anyone want to do my washing up?
