high-bar baking

“Did I…. accidentally make brownies?”

I’m not a sleepwalker, don’t worry. The “accidentally” is modifying “brownies,” not “make,” although I’m sure you’re glad to have me explain the grammar to you like a third grade teacher. 

I don’t know how many times I have to say this before I listen to myself. Probably forever, because I don’t seem to be cured yet. Actually, it probably ties into this behaviour and training book I just finished — nothing that awful really happens to me if I don’t read the recipe. Things turn out alright. 

So I’m being reinforced to keep living the life I’m living. A frightening thought, really. 

The point being, Sarah’s wonderful recipe for Double Chocolate Espresso Cookies, which I make without the espresso, is a tried-and-true in my house. It’s slowly accumulating its own constellation of “I’ve made this before” stars at the top of the cookbook page. It’s old hat. 

She calls for 14 tablespoons of butter, and I go, weird. Like usual. And instead of reading the instructions calling for the butter to be separated (10T for browning, 4T for melting into that afterward), I just charge right on ahead. Brown it all! I realize this later, to my chagrin, and hip-hop over to the interwebs to check how much water is evaporated off during the browning process. They say it’s about 1T per stick of butter, so that’s the ratio I use to add some back in. Frankly, I’d forgotten I’d even flubbed up until I went to take the first tray out of the oven. 

Then I see the cracks. They haven’t spread like usual, and the outside top shell looks like the brownie edge (matte, not shiny) that recipes try so hard to get on brownie cookies (a dumb food, I disapprove). 

The second tray is even more interesting. These fully cracked. This batch put crinkle cookies (the powered-sugar-covered chocolate cookies) to shame. 

I did my best not to over bake them, because chocolate cookies make it impossible to see “golden brown.” And the cracks were worrying me. They taste fine, they always do, but this was a fun little surprise. 

I don’t know why I bother telling y’all to read the recipes, since clearly I’m incapable of it. Do as I say, not as I do.