Sunday, January 2, 2011

Recipe: Firehouse (aka Emergency) Brownies

I made a new-to-me brownie recipe on Christmas Eve. We were going over to a friend's house for supper, and I merrily offered to bring brownies. "I'll just whip some up," I said. "It'll be easy." Except that when I got home, there was NO BROWNIE MIX in the house. And the shops were closed. PANIC!

As you can see from the picture below, I did end up sorting it out. Phew. For some reason, I didn't want to use any of the recipes that I could find on the internet. I looked through my rather epic stack of cookbooks and found "Barbara Lauterbach's Firehouse Brownies," in Lora Brody's book The New England Table. I halved the recipe and left out the frosting and chocolate drizzle. My adaptations below.


Recipe: EMERGENCY brownies (aka Firehouse Brownies)
Makes a small-ish pan of brownies (about the same as 1 box of Betty Crocker brownie mix)

2oz dark chocolate (chopped)
4oz butter, in small pieces
2 large eggs
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup plain flour
1/4 tsp salt

Preheat the oven to 325F (165C), and grease your favorite brownie pan.

Melt the chocolate & butter in a double-boiler (or in the microwave).

Whisk the eggs and sugar together until foamy. Add the melted chocolate/butter, the vanilla, and the flour and salt, mixing until just combined.

Bake in the pan for 20-25 minutes, until the top is shiny.

Cool & eat!

I have it on good authority that these are better on the second day...

2 comments:

Frances Leigh said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Frances Leigh said...

I had my own holiday baking emergency. This is SO easy, and SO good:

Fig Pudding

1 cup of finely chopped/diced figs (i got dried ones and soaked them over night. worked a treat, but you could use them in the dried state if in a hurry).

1 cup milk

2 eggs

2 heaping tablespoons plain flour

1/4 cup softened butter

1 cup sugar

1 cup chopped walnuts

Mix it all up, pour into a dish (I used a 7 in round ceramic casserole dish) and bake at 350 for 1 hour, or until knife comes out of the middle without liquid.

It is SO good. My friend made nougat and pistachio semi-fredo and we ate it with this pudding and it just doesn't get more perfect...

I'll have to try this brownie recipe though. I don't know why, but I never like the ones online either!