Bake it till its glossy

At the beginning of 2021, I decided to do something that I dreaded doing for the longest time, baking. I remembered failing an exam in high school cause I couldn't bake an effing brownie for the life of me. I clearly remembered my teacher (bless her soul) who allowed me to try three different times to produce something edible, but I failed miserably.

So in 2021, after a shitty year, I decided to face my fear and hyped myself up to bake some brownies. According to friends who are used to cooking and baking, brownies are considered an entry-level project in baking, and that I shouldn't be intimidated too much. Their instructions were clear: 1. Follow the recipe 2. Don't go rouge in the ingredients, and 3. Don't over mix.

Having remembered all these, I set out to buy my pieces of equipment, from foil to baking paper to baking tins. I enjoy cooking, so equipment plays a big part in why I enjoy cooking, in this case, baking.

For this attempt, I baked Claire Saffitz's brownies, I watched other home cooks who tried making this, and all of them said it was an easy recipe to follow, which boosted my confidence!

Seeing that there weren't many ingredients needed for this recipe helped me manage my anxiety.

I'm extremely proud of my lining and butter skills, one of the first things that the recipe told me to do.

I then started weighing and portioning the other ingredients, and this butter and choc chip combo might be the sexiest thing I've ever seen.

A lot of hand mixing was involved in this project, from blooming the cocoa powder to melting the choc chips.

And when it's time to start mixing some of this, I started panicking cause this didn't look right.

But I had to trust the process and call on all the saints I knew and just kept on mixing; luckily, it turned out well after a couple of minutes of prayer.

After mixing in the last batch of chocolate (which I decided not to chop anymore because my arms were giving in already), I just placed the whole thing in the oven to bake.

The instructions said to leave it to cool at room temp for a good hour and then pop it into the fridge until the pan's bottom was cool to ensure fudginess.

Overall, I'm very proud of the outcome. It was bitter from the cacao but with the right amount of sweetness from the other chocolate sources. If there's one thing I'd change, it would probably be the last batch of chocolate I added. I should have chopped it up as it was overwhelming to bite into a solid chocolate coin from such a small square brownie. This project made me excited for my next baking project! Onto 5 layer cakes!