Honey, you're sweet!

 I think by boss is pretty awesome, and she was having a rough week.  Then I realized it was her birthday, and from experience I know that crappy birthdays suck.  Probably I don't need the experience to know that, but I have it.  And I wanted to do my best to prevent a sucky birthday.  My best being baked goods.  I decided to make brownies and decorate her desk as a surprise.  Of course I was the one who received the shock upon discovering that I had only one egg in the house.  How this happened is beyond me.  But it did.  I also did not have any of my usual egg substitutes (applesauce, tofu, flax seed, etc.).  I searched for an eggless brownie, but I didn't really like anything I found.  In the end I came up with a recipe I liked and found the whole ordeal to be a great learning experience.

First lesson: always keep more than one egg in the house.  Especially if you like to bake.
Lesson two: Two tablespoons of water and one teaspoon of oil and two teaspoons of baking powder can be substituted for an egg.  Who knew?
Lesson three: Honey is a great addition to frosting.

Let's start with the ingredients:

Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1/2 cup flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking powder

Frosting:
3 Tb butter
3 Tb cocoa powder
1 Tb honey
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup confectioners sugar

I listed all the ingredients you SHOULD have.  Not what I actually had.  As I explained, I had to substitute an egg.  But first, of course, I preheated the oven to 350 degrees.  Next, I poured the water into a small glass, added the oil, and then mixed in the baking powder.  It did a cool science-class-esque fizzing, and then mixed into a rather nice and gooey liquid:

Next, I melted 1/2 cup butter in a microwave safe bowl.  It's always better to melt butter on the stove top because the mixture is smoother, but I hate extra messes.  So I melted it in the bowl, and then mixed in the sugar, egg, egg substitute, and vanilla until well blended.  If you have two eggs, obviously I recommend you use both of them.  If you're allergic to eggs, this might be a great new lesson for you too.  I didn't try substituting both eggs though, so I can't make any promises that it will work perfectly.  Might be worth a shot though.

Next I measured in the cocoa, the flour, the salt, and the baking powder (I didn't include the baking powder or oil used in my egg substitute in the list of ingredients, so either way you should now add 1/4 tsp baking powder to your batter).

Spread batter into an 8x8 inch greased baking pan and place in the oven for 25-30 minutes. 

Don't over cook, especially if you like super gooey brownies.

 When I got to the frosting, I realized that I didn't have any more cocoa powder.  This was clearly not my day for baking.  But I had a birthday to celebrate and no time for the store.  I just decided to melt some chocolate I had on hand instead.  I melted about 3 tablespoons of chocolate chips over the stove and then removed the chocolate from the heat.  I dropped in the butter:

and then added the honey and vanilla.  Using beaters I mixed t together until well combined and then slowly added confectioners sugar until I got a consistency I liked:

I know that using chocolate chips instead of cocoa powder meant the frosting might be too sweet, but it didn't really bother me.  And in a pinch, it got me what I wanted (i.e. a chocolate frosting)  The original recipe recommends you frost while the brownies are still warm.  I tried this and it didn't entirely work.  I recommend waiting for at least an hour before frosting the brownies.  Then let the frosting set for a bit before serving.  I brought them to work the next day and they were gone by noon.  Most importantly, my boss went home happy.  And as far as I'm concerned, that's what spells success.

The Peanut Butter Experiment

Chocolate Peanut Butter Brownies

I follow recipes.  I do not make things up when I am baking because so much depends on ratios and if you mess it up a little you might end up with a bad batch of brownies.  And that just seems like a waste of perfectly good ingredients.  So what happened tonight was out of necessity. Kind of.

I got home around 10 and started thinking about the dessert I have to make for a meat meal this Friday night at a friend's place.  She doesn't like for anyone to use margarine (actually, I don't really like using it all that much either) so I wanted a chocolate recipe for brownies that didn't call for butter or margarine.  I couldn't find one I liked online so I modified a cake recipe I've been making for years.  It uses oil instead of margarine or butter, which may not be much better than margarine, but for the moment I'll pretend.

Anyway, I wanted something with peanut butter, so I found some recipes online, mixed them in with the one I already had, and came out with a batch of brownies that (though I have yet to taste them) look pretty killer.

The ingredients are basic enough:
2 1/4 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 cup cold water
1/2 cup vegetable oil (or you can do 1/4 cup applesauce and 1/4 cup oil if you want to be healthier about it)
1/2 tbsp vanilla
1/2 cup peanut butter
1 cup chocolate chips

First turn the oven up to 350 degrees.  Then get out your handy dandy mixing bowl.  Technically you're supposed to mix the dry ingredients together and get out all the lumps, then separately mix the wet ingredients, and then pour the dry into the wet.  I know this will make a better, smoother cake but I hate having to wash the extra bowl so I just mix the wet ingredients:

and then add in all the dry ingredients at once.  As you're mixing the flour into the batter, put the peanut butter in the microwave for about 40 seconds until it's kind of soft and gooey.  I just microwave it in the glass measuring cup to save myself more dishes, but you can try microwaving it in the plastic container.  This might give you some disease down the road or just melt the plastic, but it might not.  Wow, this is like choose your own adventure baking!  Anyway, now you can pour half of the melted peanut butter in with the batter and mix it all up.  I guess this isn't necessary, but I figured the more peanut butter in the batter the better.

Now you can get out a round baking dish (or a square one, I won't be shape-ist) and oil/spray/butter it up.  Pour 3/4 of the chocolate batter into the dish, sprinkle the chocolate chips on top, and then dot the top of the batter with the melted peanut butter.  By which I mean take dollops (I really enjoy saying that word) of peanut butter and drop them across the top of the batter.  I got too excited about this to stop and take pictures, which would probably have been helpful for you.  Sucks to be you!  Haha, just kidding.  But back to the recipe...drop dollops (extra points for two usages in one post!) of the chocolate batter on top of the peanut butter and swirl it all around with a kitchen utensil.  I used a spoon.  I'm sure a steak knife or the tip of a ladle would work just as well. 

So anyway, now you put it in the oven and let it bake for 30 minutes.  If you're like me and enjoy the salmonellic thrill of undercooked brownies, take it out when it's still a little gooey in the center and (once it has cooled a bit) place it in the freezer.  It will now be delicious perfection.  Frozen brownie batter is what made Ben and Jerry famous after all.  Well, one of the reasons.

And now you have a great, dairy-free, margarine-free, peanut butter and chocolate dessert that everyone will love.  If they don't love it, they're probably crazy and aren't worthy of conversation anyway.  Not to be judgmental or anything, but I do have standards.

I'll re-post a warning if I bite into this and discover it's all bark and no bite.  I'm not really worried though.