Day 34: I've nothing indoors

We needed a square pan when we made Turkish Delight the other week.  Now that I've bought one I felt should find reasons to use it, and I just happened to have some white chocolate lying around...  First World problems hey.

I let Hub put in a request, which for was a slice, and I got a bit stuck.  I realised then that I'd grown up with slices including a fruit of some kind - usually apple or a jam, not chocolate - and that I expected them to have layers and a short pastry of some kind.  However Hub includes brownies and fudge in that group and my mum never made those.  Considering my family's penchant for chocolate I have no idea how that whole genre was skipped*.

These Two-tone Fudge Brownies were rather persuasive.  They're from the small AWW cookbook series, this one being biscuits brownies & biscotti.  I've made the Orange Polenta Biscuits before, but didn't love them enough to do that again.  The Melting Moments we pretty good too - definitely butter-based and melty, slightly coma inducing.

These brownies, as it turns out, are
 pretty full on.  Six eggs, three for each layer, and a whole quarter pound of butter make for a rich cake, which is what makes it brownies, I suppose, and not just a slice.  They're much easier to knock up than I expected - essentially a melt and mix recipe but you have to do it twice.  (Do I call it 'brownies' before it's cut? Or 'the cake'? Or 'brownie cake'? My plurals are getting confused!)
It recommends to put foil over the cake if it looks like it's going to burn.  After 40mins in the oven it was rather 'golden', so I covered it and spent the remaining 40mins a little nervous because I now couldn't see if it was burning.
Also, this book uses 'terms' for temps and not degrees (i.e. 'moderate oven') which have a 25° range in Fahrenheit.  In an effort to figure out my forever-singed baking, I reduced the temp from the mid to the lower end of the range, with 20mins to go, even though the cake is on the second-lowest tier again.  I also left the foil over the cake as it cooled in the pan, to discourage sinking (not completely successfully).

Moist! It says makes 25, but I'll cut 36 since its so rich.

Having discovered this book again, I'm thinking of making the chocolate almond bread (a biscotti-style thing) because it says it 'makes 70' and that's my kinda of effort-to-quantity ratio.  It would be a good stash to take with us on our week-long holiday on Thursday.

(Speaking of, I'm not sure what's going to happen with the blog during that time...)





*This may have been a strategic move on Mum's part. For some reason, having a baked good in the house was the norm (a tradition I'm fast emulating).  There was always a cake, a slice or biscuits in the tin, and as soon as the supply got low more would usually be made, a job usually left to Mum (until I started joining in).  I remember many an arvo tea before Dad would go the shed for milking, he'd ask in a hopeful voice "Got any bikkies?" Mum would often make Anzacs.  They are a traditional Aussie recipe, full of rolled oats and golden syrup.  They sound lovely yet for some reason we didn't really like Anzacs.   So while we wouldn't eat them we also couldn't complain that there weren't any bikkies in the house. Considering she baked for CWA and the Red Cross too, I could totally see how she'd want to reduce the load at home. Well played, Mum, well played.