Not a Baker, but I Do Love Ice Cream

I'm not a baker. Not at all. I can follow a recipe, sure, because you have to when you bake. It is more chemistry than anything else. If you mess with the ratios of flour to eggs to oil to sugar you can come out with something completely inedible. When I cook, I tend to look to recipes for inspiration, technique, or a general outline of what I want, and the outcome is almost always dependent on the time I want to spend on it and what I happen to have in the pantry at the given time. Plus, I like the freedom of being creative and adding foods and flavors to the things I cook. When I bake on the other hand, I'm a real stickler to the recipe. In fact, I'd really like to get a kitchen scale so that I can make a science out of it.

So, I sort of surprised myself when I volunteered to bring dessert of all things to my aunt-to-be's Father's Day's BBQ. What should I bring? A few years ago around Christmas I made a delicious peppermint ice cream and smashed Oreo cookie layer thing which was quite good (and easy, because I didn't have to bake anything). I thought maybe I could make a summer version with brownie on the bottom, mint chocolate ice cream above, and smashed Oreos to sprinkle atop, sort of like a cookie cake. In my typical style, I didn't want to just make brownies from a box, I wanted to make real brownies from scratch. So I pulled out Joy of Cooking because it is my go-to cook book for all the basic recipes and techniques (thank you, Linda, for such a great gift!) So, Brownies Cockaigne sounded delicious and like something I should learn to do. It requires melting chocolate with butter, beating the yellow out of some eggs and sugar, then folding in the chocolate and some flour into the eggs until just mixed, no more. I've seen Food Networkers use this technique before (mainly Paula Dean) and it always looks so yummy. Other than that the top completely caved in, they weren't too bad for a first attempt. A little dense, but not bad at all.

Probably, though, the batter was better than the brownies. Mike took care of the bowl with great pleasure.

 The final product, minus the Oreos, is below, and was reportedly voted #1 at the BBQ. I think the judges were a little biased, but it sure raised my confidence on my baking. Perhaps I will try a little more of it in the future.

Question of the Day: Ice cream may be my favorite food. Ever. What is your favorite flavor?