Brown Ease

Annabeth had never been a big brownie fan, either to bake or to eat. The pre-packaged box with the dirt brown mixes had never appealed to her. Adding eggs, water and oil to the chalky powder, then only mixing it fifty strokes just did not get her attention. Until the advent of Pam or Crisco cooking spray, which makes it much easier but can leave an artificial taste in the mouth when biting into the baked chocolate, it was quite a pain to have to grease up a paper towel to spread across the heavy glass pan, making sure to get every inch covered, lest a spot of brownie that would stick to the pan.

Cooking them could be tricky sometimes, with the variance in mixes, pans and grease method. It was rare to get the “perfect brownie.” It was either too dry on the outside and firm on the inside, or perfect on the outside crust – chewy but not too crisp – but then too gooey in the middle. The texture from both her own and others brownies and the chocolate taste did demand her sampling or making them.

She remembers a time when her younger sister decided to bake brownies herself, when she was still living at home. Having made several cakes with their mother in the past, Jennifer followed the sign of readiness being that a toothpick stuck in the middle would come out clean. After the appropriate time of 25-30 minutes, the pick of course was not near clean, so she baked another five minutes. Again, no clean toothpick. So, she set the timer for another five. Still sticky. She proceeded to cook the brownies over an hour before the pick was clean enough to her satisfaction. Proud of her persistence, Jennifer took the brownies out of the oven. She put the pan on the cooling rack and went to read a book.

A little while later, Jennifer went to cut the brownies she had just baked. Was she in for a surprise! Her handy dandy knife had a bit of difficulty getting through the top crust of the brownie, her hand slipped, and Ow! She picked up her hand to examine the hurt from hitting the brownie and what did she see but blood! The hardened brownie had cut her sister. This experience of her sister’s prompted her to halt her brownie making, lest she draw blood.

With time, Annabeth overcame her fear of brownies, for her busy lifestyle had demanded an easy and affordable dessert. She’d been inclined to make hundreds of them in the past couple of years, for teacher appreciation, Bible study gatherings, dessert for neighborly get-togethers, girl scouts and get well soon dinners. The simplicity of slitting open the chocolate dust and adding the three ingredients with relatively little muscle movement was appealing and fast.

But something happened over the course of baking those dozens and dozens of dark brown goo. She began to sample, experiment and test new boxes and recipes. She tried an old fashioned version of brownies from her grandmother. She experimented with the store brand and the Duncan Hines variety. She bought the milk chocolate version and the dark chocolate version.

Annabeth found that she was required to prepare so many snacks and treats that she wanted to at least sample them and then began to truly like eating the brownies. She decided to make the box recipes her own by adding ingredients and seeking new methods. Walnuts, chocolate chips, pecans, caramel, coconut and almonds found themselves in her brownies. She did a taste test to see which brand was the best and found that it was a dark chocolate store brand.

She actually began to like eating whole brownies. And they came to become her identity, as to her friends, with them wondering what ingredients, box mix or recipe she would bring to that event. Finally, Annabeth began to make them for herself and her family to enjoy. Now, when someone asks her to bring something to a potluck or teacher appreciation, Annabeth will ask, “how about brownies?”