Oreo Walnut Brownies of Failure

Last Saturday I decided to throw together a last-minute batch of brownies for Leandro to take to a cookout with “the guys.”  Both because I was in the mood to bake, and because I’m practicing being a good Armenian housewife.

I’ve been using the Epicurious Cocoa Brownies recipe forever, but have never actually followed their recommended procedure (which is to melt the sugar, butter, salt, and cocoa together in a saucepan before adding the other ingredients). I’ve always just done the wet + dry method.  So this time, I set out to follow the recipe instructions and see whether they come out any better than they usually do.

The answer was “no” and a bunch of swear words.

Reviews

“We are men, our comments are like Twitter bots…we just munch saying ‘yum.'”
– Leandro

Ingredients

See here, plus:
1 extra egg
3/4 cup walnuts
1 cup pulverized Oreo crumbs (like when you put Oreos in a food processor)

The afternoon started off well – I did a good job pouring the sugar.  Into the pot it all goes.

This was not. Coming. Together.  The cocoa was solidifying into chunks that floated in melted butter.  I don’t think sifting it would have helped.  This procedure is a giant fail.

This is the vomitous base of my brownies, transferred to a glass bowl in the hopes that the extra stirring room would help it come together.

It worked (kinda), but this still looks pretty horrid.  At least it’s mixed enough that I can add eggs.

“All this chocolate sure smells nice.  Would be a shame if someone were to poop in the kitchen.”

By this time, I was frustrated and worried enough about the outcome of these brownies that I no longer cared to follow the Epicurious recipe exactly.  So I added 3 eggs, then the flour, and then some walnuts and a cup of pulverized Oreo crumbs.  The result was horrifically, cloyingly sweet.  Oops.

Oh, well.  Into the oven it went.

They were extremely sweet and rich, but certainly not bad at all.  At least the crackly top came out nice.

Verdict: Possibly suitable for 5-year-olds due to the extreme sugar content, but no 5-year-old’s mother would want their kid to eat this.  Probably would not make this again.  (Definitely not using this procedure.)