DISASTER BAKING #4: Triple Chocolate Wannabe Brownie Cookies, Ohio Hates Women, and One Good Website
Dear Disaster Bakers,
I evaluated at least 26 recipes while I tried to decide what to make this week. Gluten-free carrot cake! Lemon-almond faux munchkins! Pistachio basbousa. Upside-down blood orange cake.
"Give the people what they want," Jason said. He is one of approx. 14 good men on the planet, so he's allowed to make these "suggestions." What he meant was, give us chocolate. Three kinds of chocolate. Richness. Warmth. A hint of bitterness, wrapped up in a luscious blanket of sweet.
I settled on these brownie imposter cookies, which Deb Perelman from Smitten Kitchen calls "the browniest cookies," and I like to think of as a brownie that's picked up a dumbbell or six. Bulked up, a little. Bro-nie, DO U EVEN LIFT? This one does.
When I was in high school, we had milk and cookies once a week; Friday at 1 p.m. It started to sound insane after I graduated. Oh, uh-huh, at 1 p.m. the lunch ladies wheeled carts full of warm chocolate chip cookies across all the floors. We took three or four (each) and devoured them. So hot we could see the steam around the corners. I want to bottle that. The grease on our fingers, the cheap chocolate melted on our lips. A scent better than Le Labo, better than Chanel, better than french fries, better than fresh-cut grass, brown butter, and lilacs combined.
It wasn't about the cookies, which were fine. It was about the routine. The arrival of the cookies! A trumpet that the end of the week had arrived. It was how we ate them, too. Audacious! From a pile in our own palms. Like Medieval queens who bathed once a decade. Stately. Hideous.
I love Thanksgiving. All Jews do. It's the lone celebration that doesn't demand two hours of self-flagellation and exultant praise in exchange for some good food. No services; just gravy. I like how gluttonous it is, not just because the food is decadent and the pies are plentiful. It takes a gluttonous perspective. The most family, the most gratitude, the most, the most, all, all, all. I want.
That's how it was with the cookies. We just wanted. Calories be damned. We wanted to be with each other and laze around and gobble up what was there in front of us.
I used to tell people that the beat I most wanted to cover was dangerous women. But I've since refined it. I'm interested in women who want. Women who want to win or be rich or be free or both or all. Women who want to do. To take.
This week, I read that Megyn Kelly was close to finalizing a deal to leave NBC for a cool $30 million. (Or is it now closer to $70 million?) You have to respect it. I have never been paid even a single dollar to just disappear! What do I want? That.
What else do I want? For Michelle Wolf to be paid $30 million to never leave Donald Trump alone. Michelle, please take that corner of extra roasted sweet potato that I was about to put on my plate. Please take the last of the stuffing, the cranberries, the pie. Finish us, Michelle!
OK, now cookies.
If U Wannabe a Brownie Cookies
Servings: I made them monsters and eked out 18, but if you prefer a daintier bite, you could likely get 22-24.
Distractability: 3
Scratchpad: 2 points for the melted chocolate; no greater pleasure than watching puddles of butter and cocoa swoosh together. 1 point for the 30-minute chill time. Just the break you need to watch an episode of Homecoming. Not good, not not good?
Notes: I didn't deviate at all from this perfect little recipe. Except at the end. When I went for broke and sprinkled some Maldon sea salt on top of each cookie.
Ingredients:
1/2 cup (115 grams) unsalted balter
4 ounces (115 grams) unsweetened chocolate, chopped (use the good stuff here; I like Guittard or Scharffen Berger)
1 cup (200 grams) dark or light brown sugar
2 tablespoons (25 grams) granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (45 grams) unsweetened cocoa powder
1 cup (130 grams) all-purpose flour
2/3 cup (115 grams) chocolate chips or semisweet chocolate, chopped into chunks
Melt butter and unsweetened chocolate together—per Deb, you can do this in a microwave, but I did it in a makeshift double boiler; a metal bowl set over a pot of not quite boiled water. Stir until chocolate is almost melted, and your kitchen smells like all your childhood dreams come true. Take the chocolate and butter off the heat, and stir more until it's smoother than Meghan Markle's transition into duchess-hood.
Moving on! Whisk sugars into melted butter-chocolate mixture, then add eggs one at a time. Then vanilla. Whisk in baking soda and salt. If your cocoa powder is full of lumps (as all cocoa powder is) sift it into the bowl on top of the batter. If your cocoa powder is full of lumps, but you don't have a sifter, just measure it out and get in there and break up some of the most obvious lumps with your fingers. Add flour too and then stir until just combined. Add chips or chunks, and end up with this:
Now let the batter (kind of a batter; kind of a dough) chill out in the fridge for about 30 minutes. You can keep it here for like a week, but why would you?
When you're ready to bake, heat oven to 350°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
Take two spoons (or a cookie scoop if you're fance), and scoop out 2-tablespoon sized mounds. Space them out on the baking sheets to give them room to spread. Sprinkle a few flurries of flaked sea salt onto each one. Ridiculous! Perfect.
Bake for nine-12 minutes. (I took them out at nine, and they were luscious. Be careful! You want them fudge-ish and not quite set. They'll firm up as they cool.)
DistractiLinks​
Click "5 Genius Pie Tips for Our Beloved Super-Flaky, No-Stress Dough Recipe." Now doesn't that sound nice?
Read West Side Rag. As a rule, I endorse all local news media, but the fact is most does not even approach the level of West Side Rag, the best neighborhood dispatch in all of Manhattan. This site has it ALL!
Interviews with prominent Upper West Siders! Reports of new restaurants! Crime! Intrigue! Sponsored posts from the JCC. Weird weather! Photos! Of! The! Day!
You want recognition? A sense that you have a place in this world? Amble around the Upper West Side, take a photo of a newly vacant storefront, and send it in to the West Side Rag tip line. In their posts, each tipster is thanked by name. The media has a future, and it is full of mensches!
Fork over that Dough
In Ohio, the GOP is so pro-life it wants to kill women who have abortions. Read about it here. So kick a few bucks to the Center for Reproductive Rights, deal?
Quick! Not too late to donate to Feeding NYC, which hand-delivers complete Thanksgiving meals to families in need. One box is $35 and includes a whole bird, stuffing, gravy, vegetables, juices, and dessert.