Recipe Review: Homemade Graham Crackers

Following on the heels of the homemade goldfish last week, I decided to give the homemade graham crackers a go this afternoon.  I'll apologize in advance for the fact that there are far fewer pictures in this review than in that one, I set my camera aside and completely forgot about it during the actual construction of the crackers.

At any rate, if you read the goldfish post, this is going to sound really familiar.  Here is the recipe I used, which is basically flour (AP, and whole wheat), butter, brown sugar, cinnamon, honey, water, salt and baking soda.  You'll note in this picture of my ingredients, I've left out the water and the brown sugar, that was carelessness, not design.

All of the dry ingredients go into a mixer or food processor (I used the food processor, since I'd already located it for the goldfish and didn't relish the idea of diving back into my boxes, not even for my KitchenAid.)  Give the dry stuff a quick whirl to combine, then add the butter, cubed and chilled, and pulse till you have something that looks like sand.  Add the honey and the water (note to self, find a better measuring device for honey, suggestions, anyone?), then remove to a piece of parchment, rest, roll out, cut and bake, 15 minutes at 350.

This dough is very tender, even after a 30 minute rest in the fridge, but since I was just cutting out squares, it worked fine.  I rolled the dough out between layers of parchment (best baking invention ever? I think so.) since it is also quite sticky.  I went for smallish squares, and made no effort at all to make them all the same size, I just cut the dough with a small paring knife, into roughly similar sized rectangles.  I like the little holes you get on commercial graham crackers, so I dotted these with a fork, and sprinkled them with sugar before putting them in the oven.  The sugar was totally unnecessary, I just thought it might be kind of pretty on the finished product.  Most of it fell off when I moved them off the cookie sheet at the end, though, so I probably wouldn't bother next time.

As for how they turned out?  Wellllll, unless I'm using them a delivery vehicle for melty chocolate bars and marshmallows, I can take or leave graham crackers.  But these are really good, much better than store bought, very crisp and with a distinctive taste of cinnamon without being overwhelming.  But really I made them for Max, who was filching them off the cookie sheet while my back was turned.  I will assume that since when I turned around he had AT LEAST three shoved into his mouth, plus two in each hand, that he also likes them.  He keeps asking for more, but these are more of a sweet treat than a regular staple of his diet, so he's had his fill for today.

Here's the finished product.  The recipe made enough (minus the ones Max ate) to fill this container, which should keep us in graham crackers for a week or so.

And here's Max laying on the kitchen floor eating the last graham cracker I let him have, he wouldn't smile for the camera, but I assure you he was enjoying it.

Oh, I forgot to mention, but following advice from the friend who recommended this recipe, I inverted the amounts of AP and WW flour, and they turned out just fine.  Next time I am going to try using more WW and even less AP, maybe offset the junk food like nature of this with whole grains?  I'll let you know how it turns out.

Recipe Review: Homemade Goldfish Crackers

I am a regular reader of the Pioneer Woman, and read all the recipes posted on on the website for ideas and inspiration.  I haven't made anything straight off the website lately, but when I saw the recent post about homemade goldfish crackers, I thought, I HAVE to try this.  Max LOVES goldfish, and I typically buy the whole wheat ones, but good golly miss Molly, those babies are spendy for being nothing more than fish shaped cheese crackers.  Once I read the recipe, I realized that I had all the ingredients on hand already, and the hardest part was going to be finding my food processor.

I chose to fashion myself a teeny tiny goldfish cookie cutter out of a soda can, following the directions posted in the original post, here, which took a little time, but was (sort of) worth it in the end.  I'll elaborate on that point later on. 

The crackers are nothing more than flour, butter, salt, cheese and water, as you can see here:

I doubled the recipe because the recipe calls for 8 oz of shredded cheese, but I had an unopened 16 oz block of colby jack in the fridge, so I decided to just use the whole thing.  The 16 oz of shredded cheese are joined in the food processor by 2 cups of flour, and 8 tablespoons of cold butter, cubed, and 1 1/2 teaspoons of salt and pulsed till the mixture resembles coarse sand.  Then 4 tablespoons of water are added one at a time.  The recipe doesn't indicate whether to stop adding when the dough reaches a certain consistency, so I just added all four, and things turned out fine.  The dough gets wrapped in plastic and rests for 20 minutes in the refrigerator before being rolled and cut out.  With experience, I would say that a longer rest in the fridge would be better, the dough is definitely easier to handle when it's very cold, like most doughs with a high proportion of butter it gets more fragile as it gets warmer.

After a nice long rest, the dough gets rolled, cut and baked at 350 degrees for fifteen minutes.  I cut my dough into eight smaller pieces, stashing the pieces I wasn't immediately working with in the fridge, and returning my leftover scraps of dough there between rollings to firm up.  This is the cookie (well, cracker) cutter I used,

It's about an inch and a half long, and on the fragile side, but it got the job done.  Also, I set up sort of a jig to make sure that all my batches of dough got rolled out to exactly the same thickness.

So, what you are looking at is four stacks of three dvd's each that my rolling pin could rest on.  That way once the dough was as thick as those three dvd's, I couldn't roll it any thinner.  It worked really well, and made every batch consistent.  And yes, I was rolling it out between layers of plastic to reduce sticking.

These are the unbaked crackers on parchment lined baking sheets waiting to go in the oven.  Cutting out all those fishies was VERY tedious, and in future, I'd probably just make squares, because while the dough came together in about five minutes, I spent better than 90 minutes cutting allllllll the tiny fish out.  But for a first try, it was a fun project and made for a cute finished project.  Also, that narrow spot between the body of the fish and the tail? That, kiddos, is what we call a weak spot, and I can not tell you how many fish got rolled back into the ball of dough after they separated at that point. 

And the finished crackers!  As you can see, they are paler than normal goldfish, but I used colby jack not cheddar, so I didn't expect them to be as orange.  Also, you know, no dyes or artificial colors.

A nice closeup for my partner in crime, who never met a food closeup she didn't like, and a picture for scale.

My final take?  The recipe was easy, cheap, and the boy can't get enough.  He's figured out what cabinet they're in, and he keeps pointing and grunting, which in our house at least, is high praise.   I will FOR SURE be making these again.  I will also for sure be making them square not fish shaped, as I am certain they will be just as tasty when they aren't shaped like sea creatures.

Any hard cheese would work in these, a friend of mine mentioned that she made them once with a local Michigan cheddar that was delicious, and I'd even bet that if you fiddled with the amount of water, you could use a blue cheese if you really wanted to knock somebody's socks off.

One caveat, though, if you are going to make these for your family, do not do what I did and leave them in plain view on the counter for a day and a half.  They may be better for you than commercially produced crackers, but they still contain a laughable amount of butter, so you may want to store them somewhere that discourages you eating a handful every. single. time. you go into the kitchen.

A.H.

Cook Along: Volume Four - Balsamic Chicken

It’s been awhile since our last Cook Along, so if you’re still here, thanks for sticking around!  Tonight’s Cook Along was Balsamic Chicken from Allrecipes.com.

Take One:

Before I start my review of the Balsamic Chicken, I have to make a note that my brother, Patrick, joined Josh and I for dinner tonight, and he ended up helping me make dinner (which marks the first time that we’ve ever cooked together before – weird!).  I also got him to stop at the store to pick up chicken breasts and a vegetable for dinner (I SO didn’t want to do it myself on the way home from work).  He showed up not only with chicken breasts, but several vegetables (don’t worry, I’ll tell you in a minute what they were), AND a Cyrus O’Leary’s turtle cheesecake pie.  Let me just say now that he can come over for dinner ANY time.

I’m actually typing this before dinner is completely made.  The chicken is simmering away in the sauce, and if the smell is any indication, it’s going to taste fantastic.  For our sides tonight, we’ve having steamed white rice, Caesar salad, tomato-cucumber-onion-in-Italian-salad-dressing-salad (we really need to come up with a better name than that), and garlic bread.  Let’s be honest here – if it had just been me stopping at the store, the vegetable would’ve been like, roasted asparagus or something else super easy, but that’s okay.

I already really like this recipe for several reasons.  First, it smells good.  Second, other than having to get chicken breasts, everything that this recipe called for was in my pantry and in my spice cabinet.  Third, I love, love, love balsamic vinegar, and I don’t think there are enough recipes that call for it.

For right now, dinner is just about ready, so I’m going to go finish getting the last of dinner ready and then eat.  It smells amazing in here, and I can’t wait to go eat.

Okay…an hour later, I’m back to finish this up.  The results are: yum!  Patrick said that the chicken was “kickin’,” although we all agreed that it was a little bit dry (but I think it was just cooked a little too long while we were waiting for the garlic bread to finish up).  I definitely think this recipe will be made again.  It was easy and didn’t take too long to make, which is perfect for weeknight cooking.

I couldn’t get a good enough picture of the chicken by itself, so here’s a picture of the whole dinner (minus the Caesar salad because it wouldn’t fit into the frame).   And yes, it was as delicious as it looks.

A.V.

Take Two:

           I liked the sound of this recipe from the start, since the ingredient list was short, and I like anything that offers something new for chicken breasts.  This came together really quickly, although I did cook my chicken based on something I heard in a really interesting segment on The Splendid table recently about not cooking meat in liquid (stock, water, wine, etc) that is more than a bare simmer.  Apparently, the boiling action of the liquid literally squeezes the cells like a sponge, wringing out all the moisture.  So you think that you are fine because your chicken breast is cooking in stock, but it still comes out dry, because the stock was boiling.  So I cooked the chicken breasts by searing them to get some color on them, then in the sauce on a low temp, so it was barely simmering until cooked through.  It took slightly longer, but the chicken was really juicy. I took the meat out of the skillet once they were done, and put them on the cutting board under a metal bowl to stay warm while the sauce reduced.   Once it was the consistency of running barbecue sauce, I sliced the chicken and spooned the sauce over the chicken.  We had our Balsamic chicken with a side of corn on the cob and my new favorite thing to make, potato galette.   Potato galette cooks primarily in the oven, and corn on the cob is all prep work, so the chicken recipe was a great fit.  Also, we have one chicken breast left, which I am dreaming about using on a salad for lunch tomorrow.  Some nice lettuce, a juicy tomato, maybe some red onion and the remaining chicken with the leftover sauce slightly warm over top.    Or maybe as dinner during Leftover Lotto. 
 
This is a definite keeper, and I would go so far as to say, my favorite of the recipes so far, great for summer, especially now during the height of grilling season.  This would be amazing on the grill, just put the sauce in a small pan on the back of the grill, use it to baste the chicken, or let it reduce to serve alongside.  You could do kebabs, with zucchini, tomatoes, onion.  Or how about with some tomato and mozarella on a grilled sandwich.   

On a side note, let me also recommend the potato galette.   There is a recipe if you want one, but it is just thinly sliced potatoes laid in an oven proof skillet, you melt a little butter in a hot skillet, and then layer the potatoes with salt and pepper and tiny bit of rosemary (I only put this on the first layer, salt and pepper on all layers).  After the initial layer, you can brush a bit of olive oil over each layer, but use it sparingly to avoid the finished galette getting greasy.  Now, traditionally, this is an all butter dish, so feel free to go that way, too.  At any rate, you just keep layering.  The more people you need to feed, the more layers you add, and adjust your cook time accordingly.  This does great at about 350 degrees, half an hour for only a couple layers, maybe 45 minutes if you do half a dozen layers.  But if you've got something else in the oven, just put it in and keep an eye on it, it's potatoes, you can't mess this up.  Try it, you'll like it.


Let us know if you try this one, I'd love to hear what you did with the leftovers. 


A.H.

Brilliant Revelation re: Zucchini Orzo from this week's Cook Along

Tonight we had Leftover Lotto for dinner, which is basically my attempt at jazzing up boring old leftovers.  I opted for the leftover orzo from the other night's cookalong with. . . . . . . . . wait for it. . . . . . . . . . it's worth the wait. . . . . a poached egg on top!

I heated up the orzo in a non stick skillet with a pat of butter, added an extra splash of lemon juice, and a handful of parmesan cheese, and then I poached an egg and plopped it on top of my bowl of pasta.  After mixing up the egg with all the pasta and cheese, I was left with a bowl of pasta and zucchini in a light but luscious sauce.  Enough protein from the egg to call it dinner, and a mighty satisfying one at that!

AH

PS - A little cooked pancetta, ham or bacon with this would propel it into the realm of the truly stellar.

Cook Along: Volume Two - Chicken Fingers and Dipping Sauce

Tonight marks the second appearance of our Cook Along feature.  A brief recap of the rules, we both cook an agreed upon recipe, on the same night, exactly as it's written.  No changing the recipe, no discussing it until after the cook along is done, and NO LEMON BARS!

Tonight is actually a two-fer, Easy Chicken Tenders from Pioneer Woman, and Chicken Finger Dipping Sauce.   The ingredients are all basic pantry staples, which is always nice.  No Glamour Shots of the ingredients tonight, as neither one of us remembered to take a picture, so you'll have to imagine what raw chicken and flour looks like for yourself.

Now, on to the reviews.

Take One:

Okay, confession time.  I picked tonight's recipe because when Andrew and I lived in Baton Rouge, one of our favorite restaurants was Raising Cane's.  They only serve chicken fingers, and they give you this fabulous dipping sauce that is unlike anything else I've ever had.  So when I found the recipe online to make the sauce, I knew I had to try it.  As was mentioned above, the recipe is pretty simple, all items I had on hand.

I used boneless chicken breasts I already had in the freezer, just cut into strips.  I actually forgot to take them out of the freezer until like ten minutes before I wanted to start dinner, but luckily, I'd read this article the other day about how you can safely defrost things in hot water without risking food born illness, so I tried it and it worked like a charm.

Since Pioneer Woman says to just use whatever you have on hand to season the flour, and because I NEVER use season salt, I used chile powder, salt, white pepper, oregano and garlic powder.  The end result was nicely seasoned, and I'm glad I didn't buy season salt specially for this recipe.

I had a little trouble getting the right consistency when I added the milk to the flour, but I ended up mushing it between my fingers like if I were making pastry dough,and it came out pretty well.  The final coating was a good thickness, and there were plenty of little crunchy bits.  I'm glad to have that technique in my repertoire for future. 

I ended up with way more chicken fingers than I needed to serve two adults and one toddler who barely eats meat anyway, so I took Pioneer Woman's suggestion and flash froze half of them.  I'll report back later how that works out.

So, I have to tell you my deep, dark kitchen secret.  Ready?  Come closer. . . . *whispers* I'm afraid of frying things in oil of any depth.

Yeah. I know.  I consider myself a better than average home cook.  I'm not intimidated by much in the kitchen.  I'll try anything once, custard, souffle, candy making, whatever.  But anytime a recipe requires more than the barest puddle of oil in the bottom of a skillet, I start to get nervous.  I have a splatter screen, and I have a fire extinguisher, but I have to tell you that in the fifteen minutes it took me to cook the chicken I'm pretty sure my blood pressure went up at least 20 points.

But we got through it, and they turned out nicely golden brown and crispy.  The dipping sauce was pretty much spot on like Raising Cane's, and went nicely with a side of mashed potatoes and coleslaw.  Andrew's only critique was that they were "too crispy", but I'm not sure how to respond to that, so, oh well.

My final verdict?  Honestly, pretty good.  Easy recipe, good finished product, but at the end of the day, a lot of prep work and dirty dishes.  I hate to say this, but next time I want chicken fingers (once I've cooked the ones in the freezer)  I'm more inclined to just pick up a five pack of chicken selects at McDonald's.  GASP!  Yeah, I know.  But I just don't want chicken fingers that often, and I really like those, especially since they don't come with a side of dirty dishes.

So, if you're set on making chicken fingers, this is a great way to go.  If you're looking for an easy week night meal, I might just keep looking.

AH

Take Two:

For these chicken strips, I bought chicken breasts that were already cut into tenders (why take the extra step of cutting chicken breasts into strips if someone’s already done it for me, right?).  The recipe calls for Lawry’s seasoning salt, which I didn’t have already in my spice cabinet, but I actually had a random coupon for it, so I got that, too.

I started off dinner by getting my side dishes going, since they were going to take longer than the chicken strips.  We had roasted asparagus with garlic (yes, again, but that’s a favorite in our house, and my mother-in-law bought me some asparagus and garlic at our local farmer’s market last Saturday and I needed to use them up) and roasted red potatoes with French onion dip seasoning (another favorite).  Once those were in the oven, I got to work on my chicken strips.

The first thing I noticed was that when I poured the buttermilk into the flour/Lawry’s mixture, it didn’t ball up into nice little clumps like the recipe suggested it would.  It clumped up into big goobies that didn’t really evenly cover the chicken tenders.  I ended up with kind of a gluey mess, but I made it work.  The next thing was that it took much longer for my chicken strips to cook than just the minute and a half per side that was listed in the recipe.  The third group of chicken strips turned out really nice and crispy and definitely were the best ones (the first group wasn’t bad, but it since those were the first ones, they were really more like practice).

Positives: Once I got the hang of frying the chicken, it turned out really crispy and good.  The dipping sauce was really tangy on its own, but it was absolutely perfect with the finished chicken strips.  They were definitely better than frozen, store-bought chicken strips, and the Lawry’s added a nice kick of flavor to the batter.  My asparagus and potatoes were also delicious (but then again, they rarely fail me).  Josh really liked this dish, and he really, really (REALLY) liked the dipping sauce.

Negatives: Honestly, as good as this recipe is, it isn’t something that I plan on making on a regular basis.  Ignoring the fact that I burned my finger pretty badly on the pan that I was using to fry in, my kitchen now smells like a grocery store deli.  Now, I spent a summer working in a grocery store deli, and it was my Least Favorite Job EVER.  To this day (and it’s been 10 years since that summer), when I walk into a grocery store, I can tell if their deli needs to change the oil in their deep fryers, and it makes me nauseous and I usually leave (seriously).  The fact that my kitchen now smells like this is really gross and I’ve got like three candles burning and several windows open to try to get the smell out.  Also, there were a LOT of dirty dishes involved in this, which isn’t my idea of a good time, and overall, this took way longer than I thought it would.

Even though I’m not super excited about the scent that the chicken strips left in my house, I’m really glad that we decided to do this recipe.  I’ve never actually fried anything before, so I’m glad that I tried it.

Here’s a look at my finished product.  Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to go run more cold water on my burned finger.

A.V.



Post Script:  The Chicken Fingers that went in The Freezer

The chicken fingers have been languishing in my freezer since this cook along, and I pulled them out tonight as a last minute dinner option when I knew I needed something that everybody would eat for dinner tonight, with out complaint.


They were thawed to refrigerator temp in about 90 minutes, and went straight into the pan from there.  They were slightly drier tonight, but we preferred their texture this time around.  I'd say they were as good or better than the first night.  Unfortunately, Despite fully half the prep work being done, I still have an awful lot of dirty dishes.  And hot cooking oil to deal with.  Well, shit.   I probably won't be repeating this in future.


AH

Cook Along: Volume One - Marinated Baked Pork Chops

Welcome to our inaugural "Cook Along" recipe review.  In case you missed it, the rules of cook along are simple:  both halves of the brain make the same recipe on the same day and review it with out consulting the other half.  No changes to the recipe, no talking about the recipe until after we've written our reviews, and absolutely NO LEMON BARS.

We chose Marinated Baked Pork Chops from allrecipes.com.  And now, onto the reviews!

Take One:

The recipe is pretty straightforward, and the ingredients list is manageable.  Aren't they pretty?

Okay, first off, can we discuss the fact that while the recipe is called "Baked, Marinated Porkchops", there is no actual marinating taking place.  I'm not sure that they need it, I just like truth in advertising.  

I used pork loin chops since that was the best deal at the supermarket this week, but they were on the thin side for pork chops, not quite 3/4 inch thick.  They turned out fine, but in future I would probably use a thicker chop, and maybe a sirloin chop or something that would really benefit from being braised for an hour in the oven.  Also, I would probably turn the heat up on the oven for the last twenty minutes to thicken up the sauce a little bit.  I will admit that I was initially surprised not to see salt on the ingredients list, but with Worcestershire sauce and soy sauce in the mix, it didn't need it.  All in all, a good recipe, and a tasty finished product.  

I served them with a side of mashed potatoes and sauted squash.  Everybody here enjoyed them and with a few minor tweaks they will definitely make it into the recipe rotation.  I'm sorry not to have a picture of the finished product, but we were too busy shoveling food into our gaping maws to get out the camera.  So, enjoy your pork chops and let us know what you thought.

AH

Take Two:

My Cook Along involved not just my husband, but it ended up being a test for my mom and dad to participate in too, as they came over for dinner tonight.  I was excited to try this recipe mainly because of the ingredient list.  There are only seven ingredients involved, and best of all, they were all (except the pork chops) things that I have in my kitchen all the time.

I bought the pork loin chops at the grocery store (they were the cheapest), and they worked out just fine, but I think that next time I make this (and there will be a next time!), I think I’ll get something a little thicker.  The loin chops were good, but they would’ve been even better if they were thicker.  Because my chops were so thin, I cooked them for a half hour on the first side, but then only 15 minutes on the second.  They actually came out really nicely, and they weren’t dried out at all.

One thing I did think was a little strange was that there really wasn’t a lot of sauce for the amount of chops.  I mean, even in the actual recipe, the author wrote that they often double the sauce to have enough to put over rice, but I don’t even think doubling it would be enough.  As it is, there’s only eight tablespoons of sauce here.  It definitely covered the chops that were there, but it just wasn’t enough.  Side note: I LOVE oven drippings, and I really like having plenty of drippings to spoon extra on top of whatever it was I made in the first place (and yes, admittedly, even sampling a spoonful or two of just the drippings themselves).

My side dishes for this dinner were garlic mashed potatoes and roasted asparagus (two favorite things in my house).  There was NO food left at the end of dinner.  Luckily, I managed to take a picture of the plate of pork chops before we started devouring them.  My husband has declared that this recipe is a keeper and that I should feel free to make it again.

A.V.

Recipe Redo, is it a Do or a Don't?

So, my partner in crime and I are having a deep, philosophical conversation about the worthwhileness of attempting to fix a flawed recipe.  The recipe in question should have been awesome.  It looked good in pictures, it sounded good on paper, but at the end of the day the finished product was underwhelming.

In this specific instance we decided that the best route to go was to simply find a new recipe online and try that.  But it begs the question, when a recipe doesn't live up to expectation, should you say screw it and move on, or attempt to remedy it?

For me it comes down to a couple of things.  The first is, how badly did I want the recipe to work out?  if it's something that I thought should be fantastic and I was super psyched about, I'll probably try to tweak it or fix it. I might do as we decided to do above and search for an alternate recipe for the same thing, provided that I know where the recipe went wrong, or have an idea of what I'm looking for in an alternate.  The other thing is do I think a redo will improve the finished product?  Recently I made some cornbread from a recipe off the Food Network website, it was okay, not great. The dictionary definition of underwhelming.  The thing that I realized was that I don't really like cornbread all that much.  So this recipe will probably not get a second chance, because I'm just not enthused enough about the finished product to go to the effort of adjusting the recipe or finding a new one, even though that would take me all of thirty seconds and one visit to Google.

What do you think?  Does a recipe that falls flat get a second chance, or do you just move on?


Also, by way of a post script, we will be debuting a new regular feature here at Eat, Read and Be Merry in a few days.  The Cook-Along.  Cook-Along has a few basic rules.  One, the participants will execute the designated recipe on the same day.  Two, the participants will execute the recipe EXACTLY as written, unless other wise agreed upon before hand.  Three, at no time will the participants attempt lemon bars, because lemon bars are my nemesis and my new oven is still really clean and I'd like it to stay that way.  So stay tuned, the first Cook Along should be up for your reading pleasure in a few days.  Ta-ta till then.

AH

Recipe Review, Cocoa Brownies by Alton Brown

My project last night was to make brownies from scratch. To complicate matters I was looking for a recipe that only called for basic pantry ingredients, since I only had cocoa powder in the house. Alton is my go to guy for basic recipes, so it made sense to start with him. Fifteen or twenty minutes of perusing the competition online convinced me that I was right. As a CYA here, I’ve linked to the recipe, but I won’t reproduce it here. I’m not sure how Mr. Brown feels about random strangers critiquing his work, sooooooo, we’ll just be a little careful.

As recipes go this was a pretty basic one, eggs, melted butter, sugar, flour, salt, cocoa, etc. The amounts were all reasonable, I mean, I just don’t like a recipe that makes 30 brownies and takes four cups of flour. I don’t keep those quantities on hand, plus, Andrew and I need nine or ten brownies, tops, not 30. I was able to do the whole recipe without an electric mixer. All the dry goods are sifted, which is awkward with the brown sugar, but whatever. Took me about fifteen minutes to put it all together, including buttering the pan and dusting it with flour (although I used cocoa powder, after all, they’re brownies). I followed the recipe instructions, which are pretty basic. I did make sure to add the flour last and to incorporate it with the minimum number of strokes necessary. This is supposed to yield a very tender finished product because the flour cannot build up any gluten as you stir it, which is the thing that makes your baked goods chewy.

Going into the oven, the batter was very thick. We like our brownies on the undercooked side here so I pulled them from the oven after about 50 minutes at 300. A knife inserted in the center came out with a few crumbs. As we also like our brownies warm we did not wait for them to cool completely before consuming them, but AB does say to.

The damage control portion of this evening’s event totaled one mixing bowl, three measuring cups, four utensils, and the sifter. Everything went in the dishwasher except the sifter and the bowl, and I didn’t even get cocoa on the floor, so cleanup was quick.

Finished product was soft, very crumbly, and very good. These are very dark brownies, and they were not overly sweet, which I like. They would pair well with ice cream, fruit, or additions like caramel or peanut butter swirl in the batter. I really want to chop up a RitterSport Milk Chocolate with Whole Hazelnuts and mix that in, but someone in my house doesn’t not like hazelnuts. So, that’s an experiment for another time.

Final Verdict: Good Basic Brownies. These are not apocalyptic, Earth shattering brownies, but they are easy, and they don’t require any special ingredients. They’d make a great base to a fancier dessert, or for cooking with a tiny helper, since there are no sharp utensils, and sifting would be fantastic to delegate to small, eager hands. Just be safe around the oven and turn a blind eye to the inevitable dusting of cocoa all over your kitchen.



As a side note, try the RitterSport Milk Chocolate with Whole Hazelnuts some time. They carry them at Target or some grocery stores. Most satisfying chocolate bar ever. Nice square bars, so you can easily break it up for multiple small servings.

AH


Edit:  This is now day four since I baked the brownies.  First, let's all cheer that they lasted four days.  Second, they get better with age.  Day four is much fudgier and less cake-like than day one.  Definitely worth the wait.