There are a lot of things that can potentially go wrong with this. Taking a look at the recipe, adapted from smitten kitchen, who adapted it from Martha Stewart, a couple of tricky hurdles off the bat: I don't know if my bowls can handle being a makeshift top part of a double boiler. I don't have a 9 x 9 pan in my apartment (I do have a 1 1/2 inch deep baking sheet that's about 8 x 11). I don't have my standing mixer with me. I first bought baking soda instead of baking powder, when I was considering making pumpkin chocolate chip cookies instead of the brownies. Bad news awaits, right?
Well, probably not. How can bad news happen when pumpkin, sugar, eggs, flour, and chocolate are combined and baked in the oven? It just can't. It's baking right now, so the ultimate verdict is still pending. But for now, here are the basics:
Ingredients:
1 stick unsalted butter, plus more for greasing the pan (yes, it has to be real butter - baking deserves it)
1 C. semi-sweet chocolate morsels (differs from the Smitten/Martha version)
2 C. all-pupose flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/2 C. sugar
2 large eggs (I like fudgy brownies, and it also made sense because of my shallow pan. If you like cakey brownies, put in 4 eggs)
1 T pure vanilla extract
1 1/4 C. solid-pack pumpkin (not the pumpkin pie pumpkin)
1/4 C. vegetable oil
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
(omitted ingredients were cayenne and chopped nuts on top)
(omitted ingredients were cayenne and chopped nuts on top)
1. Preheat oven to 350. Butter a baking pan or dish. I referred to my Joy of Cooking (always my default when I am starting off without everything the recipe calls for) and decided to butter and line foil on top of my baking pan.
2. Melt chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl set over a pan of simmering water, stirring occasionally until smooth. This was my favorite part. Almost. I was so worried that my glass bowl would not be appropriate for this make-shift double boiling, but it was just fine.
This . . .
became this . . .
which became even smoother after a bit more makeshift double boiling.
3. Whisk (I don't have a whisk, either, so I used a fork) together flour, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl. Set aside. In another bowl, put sugar, eggs, and vanilla together and then mix under fluffy and combined, 3 to 5 minutes. This is the moment you would be taking out that fancy standing mixer if you've got one. Beat in the flour mixer. If you are using a hand electric mixer, I'd suggest only beating the egg mixture until it's well-combined because the speed of the blades are so fast. When I added the flour, I mixed by hand.
4. Pour half of the batter into a separate bowl and stir in the chocolate mixture. In the bowl with the remaining batter, stir in the pumpkin, oil, cinnamon, and nutmeg.
This was actually my favorite part, the battle of the batters:
5. Transfer half of the chocolate batter to the pan. Smooth out the top with a spatula. Top that with half of the pumpkin batter. Top that with the rest of the chocolate batter, and then the rest of the pumpkin. You might have trouble smoothing out the batters for each layer, and that's okay. It's all going to the same place. On the smitten kitchen website, she warns that during this part you should work quickly because the batters might set. This is important because if you are like me, you might get distracted by the pumpkin batter looking and smelling amazing.
6. The swirling! Take the edge of the spatula, or use a table knife, and swirl the two batters to create a beautiful marble effect. If it's not as beautiful as you'd hope, that's okay. Again, it's all going to the same place (my belly).
7. Bake until set, 40-45 minutes. Let cool in pan on a wire rack, and then cut into squares. Because I used a less than stellar pan along with a sub-par electric stove, I think I ended up cooking them for about 50 minutes. The brownies are still setting. They look more like chocolatey pumpkin pie bites, not that that's a bad thing.
The finished version looks pretty much the same as the pre-bake version but darker. My apartment smells delicious.
Verdict: The chocolate layers are really buttery, making the bottom layer detached from the rest. I am going to try baking it for a teeny bit longer to see what that does.
Postscript: It doesn't do anything. There's just too much butter in the chocolate dough. It tastes awesome, but it's meant to share with friends, not outsiders. Don't take this to a potluck where there will be strangers, unless you plan on serving it with ice cream.
Next day: Looks like time in the fridge has made it pretty perfect.
Verdict: The chocolate layers are really buttery, making the bottom layer detached from the rest. I am going to try baking it for a teeny bit longer to see what that does.
Postscript: It doesn't do anything. There's just too much butter in the chocolate dough. It tastes awesome, but it's meant to share with friends, not outsiders. Don't take this to a potluck where there will be strangers, unless you plan on serving it with ice cream.
Next day: Looks like time in the fridge has made it pretty perfect.
