Sunday, June 21, 2009

cleaning the fridge

how do you make 3/4 of a pound of butter disappear in one evening? one way is to make two separate brownie recipes for your roommates, which was incredibly fun. i had been thinking about making brownies for a few days, and it was easy to find recipes i liked. i guess i wanted to challenge myself a bit, so i had the idea to make two separate recipes back to back. i originally thought i should try two very similar ones, but instead i made a cake brownie and a more fudgelike brownie recipe. both were cocoa powder-based, so my pound of dark chocolate is still available for future use.

i made the cake brownies first, and quickly realized that recipe was much easier to make than the second one. while, i melted my butter in the microwave for the cake brownie recipe, the second recipe had me stirring it with the cocoa powder and sugar over a double boiler. i was supposed to use my finger to test the temperature, and take it off the heat when it was so hot i could barely stand it. i eyeballed it instead, and i would prefer to see temperatures listed, since i'm not experienced enough to estimate what temperature they're indicating.

one roommate ate so many of the cake brownies that he had to consider his health and declined to try the second batch. since the sugar and butter content is similar and the cake-like recipe produces 2x the volume of brownies, he isn't as bad off as he could have been. in the end, i think the two recipes are so different that it's tough to vote for one. it is now up to the roommates to decide.

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