It pays to read the recipe

Last night at 7 p.m., after a lazy afternoon of lolling around on the couch watching the Food Network holiday specials following a huge buffet brunch with some friends, I was jerked out of my near comatose state with the sudden guilty thought that I had promised to bring in a plate of gooey brownies to work the next morning as part of a United Way commitment. Gah!

I hoisted down my copy of Regan Daly’s “In the Sweet Kitchen,” which in itself tips the scales at 10 pounds, and blearily looked up the recipe for Really Really Fudgey Brownies. I didn’t have enough chocolate in the house for a double recipe. Double Gah!

I pulled on some boots, threw a coat on and stumbled out the door with Paul’s “don’t drive too fast, for cripes sake!” ringing in my ears. I got to Sobeys’ 24 Hour and picked up six boxes of bittersweet and unsweetened chocolate, congratulating myself for thinking ahead and buying more than necessary. You know, just in case.

I got home and got to work melting the 20 ounces of chopped chocolate with an entire pound of butter in a double boiler. I got out the vanilla and noted that I would need eight eggs, 4 ½ cups of sugar and 2 ½ cups of flour. Yeah, I only had four eggs in the house, maybe a cup of sugar and a dwindling amount of flour. For the love of pete!

I took the giant bowl of melted chocolate and butter off the stove, put my boots and coat back and drove to Sobey’s. I picked up everything, made sure I didn’t get the same cashier, silently cursed the father and son in front of me in the line who were buying four litre tubs of both Oreo and After Eight ice cream, which they obviously planned to consume that night, no doubt in front of the TV, where I belonged, and arrived home loudly declaring that if I’d forgotten anything else, I. Didn’t. Care.

All’s well that ends well though, because the brownies turned out fantastic. They are decadent. They are dense. They weigh a tonne. They are the best damn brownies ever. Let me know if you want the recipe. Just make sure you read it first before you start.