While baking the brownies for my first recipe (Brownie Bread Pudding with a Salted Caramel Cream Sauce) I recalled a story of last summer, right after I moved to Worcester. After moving, my then boyfriend and I were pretty broke. Furnishing a home is expensive (even solely using Craigslist). Nevertheless, he texted me one day that he needed to bring in “treats” for the meeting the next day. I looked through the cupboards to see what I had. Not enough chocolate chips for chocolate chip cookies, not enough peanut butter for peanut butter cookies, etc. What I did have was cocoa powder, sugar, flour, a few eggs, and 7 pounds of butter (thanks mom!).
‘I could make brownies,’ I thought, ‘everybody likes brownies.’ So I set off mixing. From some limiting factor or another, I had could only make one and a half pans. I used an 8×8 inch and a loaf pan. I used a really basic recipe. Whereas usually I prefer to make brownies with melted chocolate, I could use only cocoa powder this time. They came out of the oven looking ‘Eh, alright.’
I had to do something to jazz them up, in true Jill fashion. So, I decided to make a peanut butter frosting! But I did not have everything for a full recipe. I made as much frosting as I could, with what I had, and spread it pretty thinly across the brownies. It almost didn’t cover all of them! But I made it work.
The next day, he took them into work. Not going to lie, I was really nervous his coworkers would not like these brownies. That evening he came home with none left! What’s more, he said everybody loved them!
The moral of the story is that everybody loves brownies. No matter what recipe you use, you just can’t go wrong.