Experiment 01; 05.25.11

I'm pretty sure my husband has more gray hairs cause of some of my shenanigans in the kitchen then most other things.



But thats ok; I would rather be a person who drives her husband mad with kitchen antics then spending absurd amounts on shoes or expensive small yapping dogs. Or something.

Yesterday my sister and I ventured into a double extravaganza of cooking.
We baked some frightening brownies, and started homemade yogurt.

We'll start with the brownies; the recipe was located on http://thepioneerwoman.com - http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2011/05/knock-you-naked-brownies/

Let me tell you, my normal scope of baking amounts to doctoring the crap out of a box mix and feeding the results to my husband/roomate/co-workers. Beer brownies for example.

Box mix calls for water? Ness just subs the water for guinness.
But this; this was a different sort of brownie; it involved some rather dangerous (sugary skin melting death) things and some practice in patience for once. My usual mode of cooking is 'OMG QUICKLY'.

Watching a bowl of freaken caramels and evaporated milk melt down to sugary death in a bowl resting in a sauce pan of boiling water is a grand lesson in waiting. We watched X files in the mean time >.>

I keep mentioning sugary death - for a couple reasons. One is basic bodily harm.

 It's always necessary to let the consumer know it's going to be EXTRA MOIST. Always.

I worked in the food industry a few years, and had on occasion burned my arms and hands with scalding milk, and one special time, wiped a layer of skin off my arm when a splatter of ham juices and cheese-grease landed on my arm. Imagine that but with sugar. Look at that bowl of death. It was quite interesting watching that melt down. Reminiscent to my amused imagination of the gooey tar you see Pleistocene megafauna getting stuck in on the nature shows; but made of sugar and melting into puddles of sadness and getting licked up by a horde of rabid children.

Gah. Talk about owch.

Anyhow.

The other sugary death I speak of is the betus. Being pregnant and diagnosed with gestational diabetes, and having a profound love of baking, the act of wanting to taste as I cook is a largely forbidden thing. (but we wont discuss how many caramels we tried).



The basic recipe is pretty easy to follow. The only issue we encountered was the nuts - it called for a cup of chopped pecans. Well nuts were too pricey for this to be practical, so we opted to using a half up of hand shelled and crushed nuts we had laying around the kitchen. This didnt make too much of a difference; so I opted to thicken the brownies bottom/top mix with my old fav - flour.

The end result resides in my fridge - awaiting friday night when I cut the gooey confections into small bits (and not eat any cause I'm a good person.  right.) and powder them with fancy powered sugar and cart them off to my grandmothers 90th birthday party.

Look at that .. thats the first layer of brownie-cake mix, caramel layer, and some chocolate chips. Did you just get dizzy? I know I did ><

And given then general age of my aunts and uncles, none of them can eat this either. Guess the cousins and second/third cousins can have a sugar fit.

Tempted tempted! but no - dont touch!

I still say it looks a little sloppy; but its a first time try. Not too bad :P <3

I'll get pictures of the final result. Doing them now opens this apartment up to temptations better left alone >.>

Next up: Adventures in YOGURT making. O_O...




Also; incase anyone is wondering.. what is mega fauna?