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Saturday, May 23, 2009

Brownies

My son is going over to his girlfriend's house to make brownies. As a cover, he needs some ingredients from the grocery store. Two guys going to the grocery store. This is going to be just great.

First we need bittersweet chocolate. I'm thinking this is a euphemism for semi-sweet, but no, we look in the baking chocolate section and there actually is a box labeled bitter-sweet. Next up is unsalted butter. Okay, I know about that. There is salted butter and unsalted butter. I don't think I have ever noticed the difference. Probably because most dishes with butter either get massive amounts of salt or jam.

Now we need super-fine sugar. Super-fine? We find the sugar section. There are rows of bags and boxes of granulated sugar, and here we have powdered sugar, AKA confectioner's sugar. Look a little more and there is the light brown sugar and the dark brown sugar, and here's the imitation sugar. Oh, look, I'll be durned. Super-fine sugar. Four one-pound boxes. We're doing good.

On to the flour. The recipe specifies "cake flour". Cake flour? How is that different than ordinary flour? Is that different than "General Purpose" flour? Who knows? Not me. Same as the sugar situation. Four hundred bags and boxes of "normal" flour, and 2 or 3 boxes of "cake flour" for double the price.

Then there was the vanilla. The real thing is five bucks for a small bottle, seven for a large that is twice the size. The stuff keeps forever, so we splurge and get the big one. Girlfriend is going to be stuck with this bottle for the next ten years.

Last there is the Kosher salt. The store has two pound boxes of Kosher salt, but the recipe calls for a "pinch". I think we can skip this one. What is it with these people? They want unsalted butter, but they also want a pinch of Kosher salt. Sounds nuts to me, but then I'm not making the brownies.

Son has promised me some of the brownies. I hope he doesn't forget. The bill for the ingredients came to $26.03. I begged three cents off the cashier so I wouldn't have to carry home a pocket full of change.

Update: Son delivered more brownies than I expected, and they are really good.


Update January 2017 replaced missing picture.

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