Disaster With Brownies + Happy Birthday CG 2011

Let me tell you how it all began – I knew I wanted to make CG brownies – she covets them she does and whenever I am food blog searching at school during English or Science etc (give me a break, all my exams are over and the next 2 years are not the definition of fun!), CG is my partner in crime, especially brownies!

So how could I not try to find only the most fabulous brownie recipe ever for her birthday?

And I did – but it turned out to be one of the biggest disaster recipes for me ever! I don’t understand, I followed the recipe to the T and the batter didn’t bake – at all. And it was for cream cheese snickers brownies…

I am not going to say where I found this Brownie recipe because the blogger I got it
from is a genius and it worked for her so the only thing I can think of is my oven really… weird…

It was all going fine and well – delicious batters, stuck to the baking times, used a waterbath etc.
Than fate came and I pulled it out of the fridge to cut up and as soon as I stuck my knife in, out came a lava flow of fresh batter, gooey and ooey and mixing with the cheesecake above it… I was shattered 😦

I put it in to bake for another 35 minutes (for fear of burning my cheesecake or brownies) and the batter was as flow-y as ever. Although I can eat a lot of fresh batter, I lost my appetite and frustration started to build. Eventually I threw out snickers and caramel cheesecake and felt so withdrawn for the world…

I won’t show you a picture of the corpse *sniffle*

After a depression watching of Pretty Little Liars, I resolved to make another brownie for CG just as spectacular – but alas this was not to be… although it looks good now, geez boy I was almost about to chuck this batter away AS WELL!

The recipe was from Joy The Baker for her peanut butter chocolate pretzel
brownies. And my first mistake was following it to the T…

You see, firstly the recipe calls for baking powder – I found it weird in a brownie and after my biscuit experience, I cut down from 1/2 tsp to 1/4 tsp – NEXT TIME I AM ADDING BAKING SODA FULL STOP! My middle puffed up and the swirl pattern was completely erased in a midst of puffiness!/

Then, I saw the air bubbles – hundreds of tiny dots all over the brownie! And with no pretzels to cover them! Grr, I bet this had something to do with that horrid baking powder 😦

Lastly, as it cooled, the surface was all uneven with air bubble bumps and covers and random spots of peanut butter – I don’t think so!

So how would I be feeling at that point after making 1 absolute fail recipe and 1 that was almost about to follow suit. But then I tasted some crumbs of the peanut butter chocolate brownie after heavy persuasion from my parents. Oh My God.

Rich, crumby and dense, it was a dream. And the complimenting pockets of peanut butter were ‘oh my’ worthy… I immediately resolved to fix the appearance issue and voila!

Nothing like a peanut butter chocolate ganache and crushed sundae peanuts to brighten up a brownie right? Hopefully as you look at this CG, you are enjoying one right now!!!

So yes, although my Saturday was disaster day paradise, it did all work out in the end and the brownies (although not part of any top categories), did make it through in the
end! Persevere I have heard… 🙂

Ciao 🙂