A dummies guide to making great browniesThis is a dummies guide to making great chocolate brownies. Mushy at the core with little lumps of chocolate and crunchy on the surface.
I’ve never stepped into a kitchen.But this an easy tutorial. A step-by-step procedure,supplemented with pictures, which I will follow.
Lets get started. This serves (I would like to think 1) four healthy people. You will need the following…
- 400 gms - Cooking chocolate. You will get slabs of these in any super market. You can even use dark chocolate. We went with regular to be safe.
- Cooking butter also known as unsalted butter – also available in any super market.
- A box of Oreo cookies
- Sugar
- A food processor (for those who don’t know what a food processor is, it’s one of those things that convert lumps to powder, popularly known as grinders). See, this really is a dummies guide.
- Three eggs
- A tablespoon of vanilla essence
- Baking powder
- Some basic stuff that you would find in a kitchen, like bowls, a stove and some cutlery.
- Some non-basic stuff that you would find in a kitchen like an oven and a food processor.
- And if you really wana have some fun making your brownies, get amacbook and play some music on it.
Once that’s out of the way, pick up a big bowl and put 6 to 7 tablespoons of unsalted butter in it. Then add the chocolate shards in.
Now this is tricky so pay attention. You have to melt the chocolate and the butter until it becomes a thick, liquidy, and heavenly substance as seen below.
But make sure that when you melt it, you use two bowls. This is very important. Keep the outer bowl directly on the stove and fill it with water (refer the picture below). Then keep the smaller bowl, which contains the chocolate shards and the butter inside the larger bowl containing water. The idea here is to gradually heat the chocolate; otherwise you may end up burning it. So effectively, the water gets hot, and in turn the chocolate and butter melt. Oh before I forget, keep stirring this slowly with a spoon till you get the above results. If your forearms start hurting, switch hands.
Now spare a moment to take a whiff. I can promise you, it ‘s one of the best smells ever. I love the smell of petrol and make it a point to take deep breaths whenever I refuel at a station. I can proudly say that this smelt marginally better. Keep the chocolate aside for a bit (it needs to cool down).
After you’re done taking deep breaths, if you can get yourself to stop, get one and a quarter cups of sugar and throw that in your food processor. (Just the sugar, not the bowl).
You need to turn those granules into powder. So fine that you should be able to inhale it.You can also manually grind this with a pound. But you will have a lot more difficulty inhaling, if done this way. WAIT. DO NOT INHALE. That was just to give you an idea of how fine it should be.
Great, now put that into a big empty bowl and add three eggs to it. Crack the eggs open with a fork or a knife. Do not squish them with your bare hands (even if you think that’s more fun).
Grab a fork and start beating (Make a quick clockwise rotation with the fork) until mixed thoroughly.
Now add one tablespoon of vanilla essence and beat again. Take a moment to smell the vanilla essence. Not as good as the petrol smell but still worth it.
Now take both of your greatest creations, combine them and stir (also known as “folding”) well.
If it looks somewhat like this, you’re on the right track.
We’re still not done. Another 40% to go. Add in 1 cup of flour (popularly known as “Maida” in India) as shown below. Then “fold”.
Phew, when it looks something like this (below), add one tablespoon of baking powder. Then “fold” again. 
It’s time to rip open the box of Oreo biscuits. Break the Oreo biscuits into small pieces as shown below.
Now add a little flour to the broken Oreos. Half a cup should suffice. Mix them up with your hands. This is to ensure that the Oreo biscuits are lined with a layer of flour so that they don’t stick to the chocolate immediately.
Throw in the Oreos as well and... “fold”.
Doesn’t that look nice and lumpy? Smell it some more. Aaaahhhhh... does anyone remember petrol anymore?
Now find a baking dish or a baking tin. Grease it with butter and line it (also called “dusting”) with flour as shown below. You want to make sure you do this. If you don’t, believe me, the baked brownies will stick to the base of the baking dish and will not come out unless scraped.
Now transfer the mush into the baking dish. All we need to do now, is to shove it in an oven. You need to pre-heat the oven for 30 minutes at 150 degrees centigrade. This means that you should have done this 30 minutes ago. Then shove the mush in for another 35 minutes. DO NOT open the oven before time.
After 35 minutes, open the oven and stick a toothpick into the brownie. If the toothpick comes back out clean, its ready and you can safely pull the brownie out of the oven. If the toothpick comes out with come dough stuck on it, you’ve messed up big time. Stick the dish back into the oven and continue to bake. Repeat the toothpick test process every 10 minutes. If the toothpick doesn’t come out clean after 5 attempts, book your losses, quit wasting more time on it and start all over again. This time, pay more attention.
On the other hand, if all goes well, (J) it should look like this (below) when you pull it out from the oven.
Cut it into pieces, force it out of that dish and sprinkle powdered sugar on it. Enough time wasted. Sink your teeth in.
Best served with vanilla ice cream, but feel free to get creative.
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Acknowledgements:
Reva for her willingness to make me these brownies.For having the patience to tolerate my camera and for being hungry and excited.
My mother-in-law (below) for losing it just ONCE when we were busy messing up her kitchen and more importantly, when we almost broke her baking dish.
Praerna Arora for sharing this recipe with Reva and inspiring her to try it at least once so she could discover her domestic side.
Lastly Oprah, for sharing this recipe with Praerna through her website.
