Why is it that the snacks we think will be easy turn out to be the biggest flops? I thought this would be so easy. Brownies. No problem. Quick and easy. A great option for my ultra busy day that included one repairman, Sibert nominations, three critiques, one critique group meeting, and one SCBWI meeting. Both of those meetings down in Cincinnati. No time for a complicated treat, I said. Something that will feed a crowd, I said. Yup, this will be the perfect thing, I said.
Epic Fail.
Oh, I know what you're saying. They look great. Yup. Now they do. Now that I've returned home from Cincinnati without being able to share said snack.
Nope.
1 cup butter
2 cups packed brown sugar
2 large eggs
2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1 cup chopped pecans, divided
2/3 cup milk chocolate M&M's, divided
2/3 cup chopped candy corn, divided
2/3 cup coarsely chopped miniature pretzels, divided
2/3 cup miniature semisweet chocolate chips, divided
2/3 cup butterscotch chips, divided
1 jar (16 oz) hot caramel ice cream topping
Mix your dry ingredients in a bowl and slowly add to the butter/sugar mixture.
Stir in half of your candy/nut/pretzel mixture.
Spread into a prepared 13x9 baking pan. The recipe recommended lining your pan with waxed paper. I recommend you
DO NOT line your pan with waxed paper. Mine is now stuck to the bottom of the brownies.
Bake for 20-25 minutes at 375.
They were not.
Cool completely on a wire rack.
In hind sight, they might have done better if I could have cooled them overnight. As it was, I was now down to less than an hour if I hoped to get to Cincinnati for my first meeting on time.
It's okay, I thought. I'll cut them and put them in snack bags. They'll be fine.
They were not.
They were not.
Okay, I'll just throw the pan in the freezer for ten minutes. That'll firm them up.
It did not.
No snacks tonight. That's it. Go ahead and just sit in the freezer all evening, see if I care. You just aren't going to Cincinnati. So there!
And that is why SCBWI did not get these snacks I was preparing for them.
I come home at 9:30. I pull out the now hard-as-rocks sheet of brownies out of the freezer. I decide to give them one last chance. I cut into them and AHA! They are firm. And they are delicious.
Just ignore the wax paper stuck to the bottom. Peel it off if you can. Pick it out of your teeth. Go ahead. That's the way there are supposed to be. YUM!