CONQUERING THE COOKBOOK, ONE RECIPE AT A TIME

If you've been reading my blog for a while now, you know that in addition to candy, my other passion would have to be baking.  I LOVE being in the kitchen creating something that I've never made before, and seeing if it turns out as well as I imagine it will in my mind.  Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't, but I always have a great time trying.

When I first bought the Martha Stewart Baking Handbook, I made it my mission to bake everything included in this cookbook.  (If you can actually call it a "cook"book...is there such thing as a bakebook????) Well, if I'm being honest, I bought the book in 2006...and I've not made that much progress.  However, I've decided that this will be the year I take a big chunk out of it! I've probably made about 6 or 7 of the recipes, all with great results.  I've decided to share my journey with you all...the good, the bad, and the completely unsuccessful!

So, today, I'm taking on another recipe...simple, easy, and especially for my kids on Valentine's Day.  Brownies! My kids' favorite dessert is a brownie with ice cream and all the fun sprinkles and toppings that go with it, so on this special day, that's exactly what they shall have! Here's a little run down on how I made it!

First off, I chopped up the bittersweet chocolate.  Since my bars were the thickness of candy bars, my go-to kitchen knife was enough, however I did see on the Chocolate episode of Martha that if you're chopping up thick pieces of chocolate, to use a serrated knife.

After melting chocolate and butter over a double boiler, it had to cool for about 10 minutes...seriously hard not to just come at that with a spoon!

Then, after adding the usual ingredients, my brownie batter was complete and ready to go into the oven.

Then, while my brownies were baking away.....my diet was destroyed for the day.

And here is the final result! A delicious, chocolatey brownie that I'm sure my kids are going to like.  I took a real close up picture of them so that you can see they are actually a pretty cakey brownie as opposed to the more fudgy kind...either way, in my opinion, you can't lose!

So, thankfully, I'll chalk this one up as a big success, although I won't know for sure until my kids try it.  Next up: Fruit Turnovers!