perfect bownies with a side of my words

mimi gave me a brownie pan that has a removable bottom AND a grid that settles into your batter and bakes up 12 perfectly-shaped, pre-cut brownies.

i'm not gonna lie to you, interwebs, i made fun of her. i poked fun of my grandmother. i did it. because everybody likes the middle pieces best! and i have a knife! and geez, they're only brownies!

but, interwebs, i am contrite. take a good hard look at that brownie (on a pedestal, just where it belongs) and tell me it isn't worth the multi-step process. have you ever seen such a beauty??

ingredients:

• 4 ounces unsweetened, semisweet or bittersweet chocolate (that's 2/3 cups chips)
• 1 1/2 sticks of butter
• 2 cups sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 cup flour

prep:

• spray all the parts of your gorgeous new chicago metallic brownie pan with oil/baking spray
• preheat oven to 350*

actual cooking:

• nuke butter and chocolate for 2 minutes until butter is melted
• stir until chocolate is melted

• add sugar & combine

• add eggs & vanilla
• combine

• add flour
• combine

• assemble pan with bottom

• pour in batter
• tap it gently on the counter

• lower in the grid

• bake for 35 minutes
• cool briefly in the pan
• remove grid gently
• transfer pan bottom to a wire rack to cool completely

thank you, thank you, thank you, mimi!

product review: wilton white-white

so, in making nardo's cookies 'n cream cake, i tried very, very hard to evoke the general cookies 'n creaminess of cookies 'n cream without, um, getting him a carvel ice cream cake. in cookies 'n cream. if that wasn't clear.

one thing that was sort of bugging the living shit out of me was that BUTTER and VANILLA cause uncolored frosting (and cream filling) to be not-white. but a drive by at joann's with my mom a few weeks ago (okay, like a month now) saved my life. which is to say, i met wilton's white white icing color. joy. rapture.

naturally, it worked like a freaking charm. because wilton? they know what they're doing. i used a generous squirt or two (four. it might have been four.) in the cream filling/frosting and noticed no flavor change. i may or may not have licked some off my finger, too.

i worried very briefly when my mom told me that the main ingredient (titanium dioxide) is the pigment used in titanium white paint, but, again, i deferred to wilton's superior knowledge and certainty that if a dye they marketed specifically for wedding cakes was toxic, it would totally destroy their credibility. i only just now looked it up. seriously.

(it is, indeed, nontoxic.)

i used a squirt on monday when frosting the creamcicle cupcakes with a cream cheese frosting (which had butter and vanilla) just to lighten the color, not turn it completely white. i had a good experience with that, too.

what i love about white white is the possibility. specifically, the possibility of fixing screw-ups as i continue on my journey toward understanding color saturation.