We’re Back…With Twins!
Hello again, friends. It’s been a while since I’ve fired up the blog, and, after a year and a half stuck indoors without cease, I’m delighted to report that my absence is simple: I’ve just been too busy to bake. In the past two months, I’ve moved to a new apartment, gone on vacation, and won a Pulitzer (?!?), which has left me without much time for brownies and blogging. I have logged a couple more entries in my 100 Cookies quest, though, and today, I’m here to tell you about them.
If I asked you to imagine a Chocolate Basil Brownie and a Peanut Butter Crunch Brownie, would your two mental pictures look alike? Both these recipes caught my eye when I first scanned through this cookbook, and both intrigued me — but I didn’t think that they would be similar. Peanut butter crunch seems decadent and playful, while brownies with basil seem like the type of thing you’d be served at a restaurant for $15 per one-inch square. These creations were back to back, yes, but I thought — as I’m betting you did — that they would be opposites.
Against all odds, though, these brownies are fraternal twins — and, like all parents of twins, I not-so-secretly have a favorite.
The beautiful and perfect twin
For each of these recipes, you make a plain base brownie, then add a layer of flavored topping before covering the whole batch with chocolate ganache. It’s a labor-intensive process, and frankly, I wouldn’t recommend it unless you’ve really got some people to impress. If you do need to show off, though, I’ve got some advice: Go with PB.
The peanut butter twin was the star of this show. These brownies were creamy, they were crunchy; they were, as my boyfriend put it, the kind of dessert people would remember you for if you brought them to a function. With major work, these bad boys brought major reward.
The reject
Their ugly steptwin, on the other hand, brought little. The basil buttercream had enough flavor to alert you to some herb inside, but not enough to appreciate what it was. They weren’t bad, but they weren’t great either — and considering that the assembly required you to steep a cup of leaves in hot cream for some rather pungent length, the process as a whole isn’t one I can endorse.
So yes, these bookends to my baking hiatus are definitely twins — but Mary Kate and Ashley they are not. I’m excited to get away from three-layer monstrosities in my next few bakes, and fortunately for me, the book goes far away in the next few entries. We’re still in the brownie chapter, but with everything from white chocolate to sesame on deck, the twin days may be over. Stay tuned for more adventures in the most un-cookie chapter of the cookie book!