We are – as I’ve written about in boring, endless detail on my other blog – recovering slowly from some grim illnesses, including one that led to me experiencing the delights of nasal swabbing. (if you’ve never had one, let me warn you – it’s less fun then you might think.) Being mildly sick in bed is sort of pleasantly relaxing if one is allowed to recline in catered-to splendor on piles of pillows and such, but having to look after one’s sick children while one is sick oneself is a hideous punishment, this endless rheumy misery. It might also lead to one no longer referring to oneself in the first person, apparently. The Flu: FEAR IT.
The Girl decided yesterday afternoon that the only thing that would help her in her recovery was a pan of homemade brownies, which made me beam with pride – that’s my girl! Brownies are ridiculously easy to make and the homemade kind just so much unthinkably better then the mix sort, which have the revolting taste of rotten cheese and are not substantially easier to make. IF I’m going to eat something indulgent and unwise (and I likely am, being me), I would much rather have it taste of chocolate and butter and sugar instead of preservatives and stabilizing ingredients. And homemade brownies are a perfect first baking project – simple to make and rewarding.
Double Chocolate Brownies
Turn your oven on to 350. Lightly grease an eight inch square baking pan and set it aside.
In a small pot, put:
6 tablespoons butter
6 ounces semisweet baking chocolate, chopped into chunks
1/4 cup cocoa powder.
Place it on LOW heat and stir constantly and vigilently until the chocolate and butter are mostly melted. Take it off the heat and stir, and then use a spatula to scrape into the bowl of a stand mixer or into a medium sized mixing bowl.
Add:
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
Now beat on medium speed until the batter is combined. If you don’t have a stand mixer, use a hand mixer and if you don’t have one of those, you can just use a spoon. Make sure you stir well.
Add:
3/4 cup flour
and beat until well blended, scraping down the sides occasionally.
That’s it. You’re done. Scrape the batter into your prepared pan, smoothing the top a bit with your spatula. Bake for 35 minutes (more or less).
Isn’t that EASY? There are a few things you should do before you bake, the most important of which is to MAKE SURE YOU HAVE ALL OF THE INGREDIENTS YOU NEED. I don’t know how many times I’ve been in the middle of a baking project and then realized, bleakly, that I was out of eggs or baking powder, but that says more for the current grim state of groceries in our house then any ongoing egg shortages. Still: check first.
The last of the brownies was packaged up and tucked into The Girl’s lunchbox, as she bravely headed off to school again after missing nearly a week – paler and thinner but game and having a day that is full, I hope, of sweetness, full of friends and books and running outside on a suddenly well-again day.