31
June 22, 2007
I made brownies (from scratch! from atoms and molecules and the sheer force of will!) last night. I am incredibly paranoid about burning chocolate, so I tend to hover and fret over the saucepan, unable to do anything else lest my precious, delicious chocolate seize up on me the instant I take my eyes off it.
So I asked Jason if he'd mind making the cream cheese topping.
My husband makes the most delicious brined chicken you have ever tasted. He can perfectly roast a duck and every Thanksgiving he outdoes himself with an original stuffing recipe. If you come to our house for dinner he will probably serve you watercress vichyssoise or dates stuffed with mascarpone. The best gift I ever gave him was tickets to a pasta-making class and the corresponding attachment for our KitchenAid mixer.
I spent 40 minutes last night whisking that damn brownie topping, wondering why I couldn't get it to come together right, why it was gloppy and thick instead of smooth and creamy, before I finally gave up and poured it over the chocolate batter anyway. I figured the cream cheese was just too cold, or something.
No. My husband...wonderful chef that he is, who relies entirely on instinct in the kitchen, who thinks recipes are more like jumping-off points to start negotiations than something you should actually pay attention to...used an egg white instead of an egg yolk, because the topping always comes out white. And "wouldn't it be all yellow if I was supposed to use a yolk?"
The end result pretty much tasted like we'd topped the brownies off with a nice fluffy...omelette.
Breakfast Brownies! Coming soon to a Dollar Menu near you! Available in Original and New Spicy Western Style!
Happy birthday, Jason. Let's order in tonight.
My husband, also a self-taught master chef of the savory, has a really hard time with the sweets, too.
Also, I love the word vichyssoise, especially since I made my first a couple weeks ago all by myself, and it turned out lovely.
Um, eww!!!
Although I have no doubt you are also fabulous in the kitchen!
Also: http://justjennrants.blogspot.com/ has an awesome recipe for cream cheese marbled brownies. They are a little bit of heaven.
Ohhhhh MyGOD. that is the funniest thing ever. Happy Birthday Jason! Enjoy your Bromelette.
Until you said omelette, I thought they turned out well.
As I read this, I was eating an enormous cinnamon roll I made earlier in the week. And it dawned on me that if I can justify heaps of sugar and cream cheese frosting as breakfast food, then certainly this qualifies.
You mean brownies aren't for breakfast? No wonder my hubby thinks I'm a freak!
Happy Birthday, Jason! I'm a cancer too (6/24), but I'll be the big 3-2. For the love of Pete.
And here I was trying to be satisfied with my Special K breakfast. Lo and behold, BROWNIES! With Pictures! Drool.
My husband is also a great cook who doesn't use recipes. He always wondered why the instant mashed potatoes I made always came out perfect and his were always watery. One day, he asked me my secret. I told him I follow the directions.
Happy Birthday, Jason.
My husband doesn't really do recipes either. They confuse him too much, or so he claims. When something doesn't turn out he doesn't understand why until I make him actually read the recipe and see where it all went wrong. That said, I'm in charge of the baking in our house unless it comes from a mix, because recipes are so crucial with baking and he just can't seem to grasp that fact.
He really is an amazing cook though, and isn't that such a great quality in a husband?
Ah, yes, the canyon-like gap between baking and other forms of cooking: while freeform is the best approach to many forms of cooking, baking's chemistry requires one to color within the lines. Maybe I should send this post to my similarly experimental-in-the-kitchen husband?
Now I want brownies. That's a much better use of a Friday morning than, say, the editing on my desk...
Bromlette! Hahaha!
I also think brownies are an excellent breakfast. Kind of like a vertical muffin, right?
Right?
Wait. That would be horizontal, wouldn't it?
...am an idiot...
The omelette icing would slow me down a bit. I'd scrape that off and scarf down the whole damn pan in one sitting.
Happy birthday, Jason!
Oh man, too funny. Also, I have never made cream cheese brownies, but, seeing as I have a brand spanking new cube in my fridge, this may be the weekend that my life changes forever.
What really boggles my mind here is that Jason, clearly an uber-master-chef-foodie person whose kitchen skills I can only desire to emulate, must have never made cream cheese frosting before. How could that happen?
Tsk, Tsk Jason!
Cooking is an art.
Baking is a science!
Oh, P.S., I made those exact same brownies a week ago, and let me say, if you do actually get the cream cheese part right, they are DIVINE. *mournful sigh* I guess this just means you'll have to make them again!
My husband too is a self proclaimed chef. Only thing is, he has actually cooked professionaly for years. Unfortunately, his taste buds have been burnt off with taste-testing everything he's ever cooked and now tends to make everything so freakin spicy, you fry your tongue on the first bite and have the usual arguement.
me: "You put too much pepper in this."
Husband: "No I didn't."
Me: "YES you did, like you always do."
Husband: "No, I didn't use any pepper at all."
Me: "You liar!, it's hotter than hell!"
Husband: "I just used a little white pepper." (he does that to disquise it.) It's fine."
Me: "sigh..."a little...guess I'm having peanut butter and jelly."
I would love a breakfast brownie, actually.
They look good, anyway.
I heart brownies for breakfast.
Notice that that was plural. I did that on purpose.
Happy birthday, Jason!
Happy Birthday Jason! Brownies for breakfast is definitely a step up (I think) from the chocolate chip pancakes I used to get for birthday breakfasts as a kid. Much higher chocolate-to-other-stuff (egg whites?) ration.
(that's "ratio")
Heh.
In my marriage I am the one who views recipes as a starting point, whereas my husband follows recipes to the letter. I guess I should quit laughing at him for carefully leveling off 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon (or whatever), though, because omelet brownies. Ick.
Happy birthday Jason!
more like jumping-off points to start negotiations
Did you just use a quote from Clueless?
I worry about burning chocolate (and just about anything delicate) too - so much so that I search out ways to skip any stovetop cooking of the delicates.
If this link works (if not & you're interested email me) you will have an awesome brownie that is done using the microwave instead of the stovetop (although you could probably do that anyway)
http://www.wuollet.com/kids.asp?sPL=
see link on the left to enormous brownie yumminess!
OMG, that is so funny! I sooo can't talk though becuase I? am the worst cook EVER! In the history of bad cooks! In fact, I ruined a box cake, where you just add water, by ummmm...adding too much water...so I win. Jason rules!!! Happy Birthday Jason!
Ummm...Amalah...is that your comment over on Julia's Infertility Dialog...???
Infertility DIARIES!!! God, I am Stoopid today!!
This reminds me of the time my husband made me cookies and the recipe called for "softend butter" He melted it completly and wondered why the cookie dough was runny they all spread apart in the oven and became one giant cookie!
Could that be the dessert to pair with all the breakfast pizzas in the Company Cook Book?
Also: Happy Birthday, Jason!
I so don't care that the top probably tastes like eggs...it's chocolate. I'd eat dirt if it were a topping on chocolate. I think I need help.
Happy Birthday, Jason!
Yummy! That's too funny! It sounds like something I would say too. Then I'd never hear the end of it from my husband, but hey...atleast yours likes to participate in something other than grilling!
Cream cheese icing on brownies!?!?! I think I just died and went to heaven. Now I can't stop thinking about them and I really want to leave work to go home and bake them, but it's only 3:13!! LOL!!!
Enjoyed reading about this- Nice work on the brownies despite the eggs on top of them...
absolutely hilarious. can I come to your house for dinner? don't worry, though, I'll bring the brownies.
happy birthday to mr. DC foodies himself. hope you guys had fun.
I've got an awesome recipe for Black Bottomed-Cupcakes. It's kind of like a cream cheese brownie...but it's a chocolate cupcake, with cream cheese batter inside. Absofuckingloutley heavenly!
you totally quoted "clueless." haha my little sister knows that movie word for word by heart. (and i confess, so do i)
happy birthday to your hubby and the brownies still look pretty delish to me...
happy birthday, jason!
also, please feel free to send the brownies to me, if you don't want them. i like chocolate so much, sometimes i think i would eat it even if it were frosted in dog poo.
well, you know.
not really.
but, omelette?
that's not too bad.
My husband is rather like Jason in the cooking department. And rather like Jason in the baking department too. He's never grasped that baking is more a science than an art, which means you've got to follow the recipe and not improvise.
I think I've managed to shoo him away from all baking projects though every so often he muses about making pastry. Me? I think he should start small with muffins. Or brownies.
Your brownies don't look too bad..that is..until one compares them to the photo of how they are SUPPOSED to look. (Go to link)
Hee hee hee, ha ha ha ha.
I feel your pain!
Alton Brown summed it up perfectly early in his first season on Food Network and earned even more love from me. My husband now understands that baking is careful ratios and one never deviates from them like you often do in cooking.
Oh, most awesome brownie recipe I know comes from the Hershey's website and uses Cocoa Powder. I use the special dark powder, double the vanilla and add chunked scharffenberger chocolate. Yum.
Happy Birthday, Jason!
Happy Birthday Jason!!
That's our family, too: hubby sticks to cooking, I do the baking. Except for gingersnaps. His are much better than mine.
I think I would have scraped off the topping and added ice cream instead. :)
DOUBLE BOIL. When melting chocolate, ALWAYS double boil. If you do/did use the aforementioned method, there is absolutely no need to worry about burning...anything.
Oh my gosh those brownies look so good! It's 1:30 in the morning here and I'm fighting a major urge to binge. The brownie pic isn't helping! LOL
I think it is cute that he tried anyway.
Did they taste good ?
Happy Birthday to your man! from a fellow non-recipe follower, lol
I'm dying here - all the fancy stuff he can make and - took the egg yolk out?? Cooked whipped egg white is called: MERINGUE, Jason, like on top of a lemon pie.....bwaaahahaha........too funny! Oh, and melting chocolate? One word - MICROWAVE. A few seconds at a time, and let it sit on the counter for a few minutes of there are still a few chunks in the melty chocolate, cause the heat left in there will finish the job for you. Love your blog!!
Maybe I'm weird or something, but even after reading that description, it still looks yummy.
Happy birthday, Jason!
I have a difficult time following recipes and usually just use them for ideas and often end up with similar adventures in the kitchen. :-)
From Scratch - Bossy doesn't get that expression. What exactly gets scratched? If it's the butt while emptying the contents of a Duncan Hines box then Bossy bakes brownies from scratch too.