Good morning! If you are an amazing cook who never needs a conversion or substitution chart when you’re baking and find yourself missing a key ingredient, turn away. Turn away now before I break your heart!
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| Proof my Mother was at least partially right. I can be a hazard to myself and others in the kitchen... |
Wednesday was my Birthday and to show her love my perfectionist, impatient daughter baked me Birthday Brownies! (I swear people, turn away now! Consider this your final warning.)
A little background here is probably in order. I am a damned good cook…as long as I have a recipe or it’s a country style food I’m working with. (I make the BEST bread pudding in all of existence!) But, I came to the kitchen a bit late in life since my Mother was of the opinion (and probably rightly so) that I was a walking cluster-fudge-nut and a hazard to myself and other with a frying pan.
Everything I can do on the culinary frontier is completely self-taught after the age of 20 and based on trial-and-error and the fact that it didn’t kill those I loved who were brave enough to eat it. Now, my daughter is following in my footsteps…
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| This picture right here? Will seal my fate as a dead woman at the hands of my daughter! |
My amazing chick-child makes the world’s bestest brownies! (She is SO gonna KILL me for this, but it’s too good not to share!) Much like me, however, she’s earning her kitchen stripes the hard way. The first time she made brownies? DIS-AS-TER!
She started per the recipe by melting the chocolate in a double boiler. That’s when I heard the screeching and profuse “colorful” language emerging from the kitchen. (I told you she was following in my footsteps.) It would seem that with her treading bravely into unfamiliar territory, she had somehow mistaken the steamer for the double boiler pan and her yummy chocolate was melting through the holes into the madly boiling water below!
Side Note: I love you all and it’s been an honor to know you. When she reads this? I am a dead woman!
Now back to Wednesday. She had everything going smoothly until she got to the part where you add the eggs. Now, how a family with about a gazillion birds can run out of eggs? No friggin’ clue! But it happened.
(This is the painful part folks…)
The Girl: “MOM! We’re out of eggs! I need four and I only have two! *insert all manner of ‘colorful’ language here*”
A half an hour egg hunt ensued to no avail.
Me: “Well, I think I remember reading it’s the cholesterol in the yolks that makes cake-y things cake-y. What do we have that can fit the bill…FAT!”
The Girl: “What kind of fat do we have? You really think it’ll work?”
Me: “The can of bacon grease is in the fridge. It’s loaded with cholesterol. In theory, it should work fine. You might want to add an extra tablespoon of butter just to be safe, for the moist factor from the missing whites.”
She was obviously WAY smarter than me and NOT under the influence of pain meds, since it took a bit of convincing for her to just “go with it.” (I am SO listening to her next time!)
45 minutes later
The Girl: “Mom, they’re not getting solid. I don’t think the bacon grease worked.”
Me: “How long have they been in the oven?”
The Girl: “35 minutes, the full time.”
Me: “I’d give ‘em another 10 or 15 minutes.”
15 minutes later.
The Girl: Now wailing in panic “Mom…they’re still liquid! I think all the grease floated to the top! They’re RRRRUUUUIIIIINNNNNNNEEEEEEEDDDDDDDD!!!!!!!!!!!”
Me: “Sweetie, relax. Let me see.”
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| They really weren't bad, and had just a hint of bacon-y goodness! |
All the grease and extra butter really had floated to the top. It was a brownie ooky-mush-mess! So…I did what any good Mother would, I drained all the extra “stuff” off into a bowl, let what was left cool, then I TOOK A BITE! (Stop gagging folks! It’s just what you do when your kid is in tears because she listened to your dumb-arse and thinks she ruined your Birthday Brownies!)
I probably took about five years off the life of my arteries, but I ate what we have now come to call the Bacon Brownie Fudge. And it actually was pretty darned good! Since no one else in the house had the guts to taste it, I have slowly been snacking on the pan over the last few days. And ya know what? I’ve only found three or four crumbles of bacon so far.
So, to recap the lessons learned; bacon is NOT a substitute for eggs regardless of any perceived cholesterol correspondence, my daughter has WAY more common sense than I do when it comes to substitutions in the kitchen, and love can clog your arteries!
PS Relax sweetie, Mommy’s the one who comes out looking like the total dork-wagon she really is in this story! The pointing, laughing, and multiple groans are directed at me. Plus? They really were yummy!
