To celebrate our anniversary, I turned to Mdm Crocker's trusty brownie mix. (Ok, do I hear sniggering?) Then I thought I'd do a little experiment and see if it'd turn out well as a muffin. I also decided to give the Double choc brownie a twist by adding a few spoonfuls of marmelade - sweet chocolate & tangy orange being a classic combination. With the extra liquid, I thought I'd tweak the recipe a little. Extra flour, baking powder, oil & milk went into the batter. Then, I filled 2 muffin cups with the batter and poured the rest into a pan for the brownie.
Some 30min later, I decided to check if the muffins were done since muffins typically take about 20-25min. They were a little wobbly. I guess that should be the biggest clue of all but I thought I'd still stick a toothpick in to check for doneness. I picked the first one up precariously from the oven with a pair of chopsticks, my tongs having gone missing. And as I was picking up the second muffin, I thought, yikes I'm not going to make it...and sure enough, it was a self-fulfilling prophecy (or the power of self doubt?), the wobbly muffin overturned and went splat against the hinge of my oven door. Unmentionable expletives followed as I looked in disbelief at the gooey mess I'd just made. Arrrrrgggghh. This was my worst baking disaster ever. I mean, I count myself as a pretty good cook having made cheesecakes, bread, cinnamon buns & cream cakes successfully in the past so I was doubly humbled by the gross misjudgment of baking time & consistency. Obviously, the muffins were no where near done and the batter was too heavy & runny for the muffin to rise and bake by 30min.
In my defense, the new oven was also questionable. The Electrolux oven I had in Helsinki worked perfectly without fail. The current one is a Chinese brand called Nardi. And having already determined that its timer is crap, I'm wondering if its thermostat is accurate. There are hot spots within the oven as I found out last night when I was grilling some vegetables for Pasta con verdure grigliate.
Thankfully, all ends well. The orange brownie turned out decent - I guess I just proved beyond reasonable doubt that Mdm Crocker's brownie mix was idiotproof ;) But what saved the day was the vanilla & green tea Haagen Dazs ice cream cake I'd ordered earlier in the day. Double indulgence for a special day :)
minibeanie is 8 months & 4 weeks old
ps. yes, that's the Philips baby monitor in the background! We finally got it after a colleague visited from Finland.
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