Brownies in Bulk

300 brownies. That’s how many my sister and I had to make for a fundraiser. While that might sound like a joy, purely by the sheer amount of brownies, let me tell you, it isn’t as great as you think it might be. The result was amazing. But the method was tedious. It starts off enjoyable. Then you find your hands greased up with butter to your wrists, with the discarded wrappers piled up and tossed to the side like a book in the making. Or you find brownie batter in the most mysterious of places. You begin to forget if you have a batch in the oven or not. Oh, and the perpetually dirty hands, plus the floury and chocolatey work space. Dirty as in smudged with batter. Not as in the “I went to the toilet and didn’t wash my hands” sense. You know, just for clarification.

It’s such a joy to see the brownie batter being mixed up in the mixer. The batter was thick, but not overly so, and glossy, and rich and deeply coloured. Luscious, that’s what it was. I would’ve licked it if I was a batter person. But I’m not. Call that sacrilege. I love sushi, but I won’t touch raw batter or dough. It’s just not right. Unpasteurized raw eggs? You know what that could lead to? Death. I’m only partially kidding. No, this isn’t escalating quickly, I’m only warning you about the risks. I’m all for preventing preventable deaths.

Some people are adamant that the best brownies are those made with a portion of chocolate. Bar chocolate, to be precise, or whole chocolate, or unsweetened chocolate, or baking chocolate. You get the idea. That does result in an intensely flavoured brownie. However, most recipes that call for chocolate call for a lot of it. Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong in that itself. But it’s not ideal when you need to bake 300 brownies. Most home bakers won’t need to bake that much. Actually, let me take that statement back. Everyone needs a fort made out of brownies. To hide from the bitter people. But I digress. As I was saying, there’s still the ongoing argument of whether or not chocolate brownies are superior to cocoa brownies. But really, there’s no answer to that. It all comes down to personal preference. All brownies are delicious so, in all honesty, no one’s really losing here.

The recipe we made used all cocoa powder and butter. It’s nearly a one bowl recipe. It’s far from fussy as well- all you basically have to do to make the batter is mix everything up. I’m not sure what the exact recipe is, since my sister has it, but I’d say it’s close to this one, if it isn’t the exact one. Here’s the link.

I melted each portion of butter per each batch in the microwave. In a huge bowl, since the amounts were huge. It was a disaster waiting to happen. But first, a little bit of background. The microwave I have isn’t placed at counter level. It’s set up higher, next to the cabinets, so I have to reach up quite a bit whenever I want to use it. Usually, I can’t see into the containers I put in there. So that means I have to be extra careful when loading and unloading liquids. Especially large bowls full of hot, melted butter. I did fine. Mostly. Except for one batch in particular. To this day, I’m still unsure about what happened at that precise moment. As I just managed to get the bowl out of the microwave, my hand jerked, or the bowl slipped, or I don’t know, but the bowl tipped over and spilled its glorious, greasy contents all over the counter. And over the oven mittens. It was truly a sight to behold. A golden cascade of milk oil, like a waterfall running over the counter, and the stuff placed on it, before snaking down and puddling on the floor. I stood in shock for a moment. Then I started laughing. And I couldn’t stop. No surprise there, really.

Despite that setback, the rest of the baking went without a hitch. Even though it was getting much later and we were tired. The intoxicating scent of the brownies was probably what kept us going. It was extremely rewarding to churn out pan after pan of brownies.

Something worth noting: brownie batters are killer at calligraphy.

Ah, the mysterious occurrences of late night baking.

I’d like to know which part of the brownie you prefer. The corners? The edge pieces? Or the center squares?

What about which type of brownie you like the best? Chewy? Fudgy? Cakey? Or a combination? These were in between chewy and fudgy. They were moist and dense, and not crumbly, which some brownies made with melted chocolate tend to be.

We also packaged the brownies into these cute compact bags. 3 in one bag, which meant 100 bags, which meant 11 leftover brownies which no one really ate. What a waste. But we were a little tired of brownies after that. I know, I know, how could I be?

Shame on me.

The twist tie bows were adorable.

Those were the leftover ones, and they’re not exactly fresh. But they were still good. Brownies can never be bad. Please don’t prove me wrong in that area.

Test Butter Cookies and Bars

What do you consider to be a plain cookie? Or a basic one? I’d say it’s a cookie without additional flavouring, and made with minimal ingredients. So, say, a butter cookie. Shortbread, maybe. I have a thing for formulating my own recipes. I decided to come up with my own butter cookie recipe a while ago. However, my niche lies in bread baking, not cookie baking. I went in a little blind.

During the trip to Japan, I bought a few cookie cutters and decor tools. For this trial, I tested some of them, and I must say, they’re great. Japan has some unique things. To say the least. I picked up a set of tiny cookie stamps which is comprised of the alphabet and a few miscellaneous symbols. They’re adorable. I also got a cookie cutter shaped like a poodle, and another small one shaped like a goldfish.

Going off topic now. Since I like experimenting, I decided to try making some sort of shortbread strawberry bar thing. It turned out well. Above my expectations, actually. I brought it to a family dinner. My younger cousin kept going back for seconds, which was a good sign. Although that was a while ago and I don’t quite remember the exact recipe. The base was similar to shortbread, or was made of shortbread dough. But with vanilla extract added. I topped it with a mixture of mascarpone, greek yogurt, and whipped cream. Then I topped it all off with some chopped up strawberries macerated in sugar and torn mint leaves. It was a good contrast to the rich, buttery crust, and the creamy and tangy topping. Flavours are definitely fun to play with.

One criticism- the dough was underbaked. I baked it until it was barely browned and still rather soft. If you like eating raw dough, then that’s the way to go, but as for me, I’d bake it until firmer next time. I’ll try to remember the recipe. If I do, I’ll give this its own individual post. For now there’ll be no recipe posted here. My apologies.

Oh, and we had giant strawberries then. Or maybe my hands are just small.

Back to the poodle cookies. Once again, no recipe, because that was a trial one. The dough was a little tricky to manage, but I barely chilled it, so it’s no mystery as to why. That resulted in a moderate use of extra flour.

By the way, the poodle cookie on the lower right corner says ‘moo’. Not sure why it wasn’t clear.

Let’s play “find the poodle with the Frankenstein leg”.

So then I placed those in the freezer for a while and preheated the oven. To 180˚C, probably. The default.

They turned out like this.