While I take a break from facing off against my fudge foe, I thought it was time to branch out into something a little less finicky.

Since Betty Crocker served me so well in my chocolate chip cookie adventure, I turned to her again for brownies.

Taking it slow

There are about 1,456,873 recipes for brownies out there, so I thought I’d start slow with Betty Crocker’s boxed recipe.

To make it my own, I changed the recipe a smidge. Previously, this has proven to be a mistake in my hobby hunting, but I thought, “It’s a boxed recipe. What could go wrong this time?”

Tweaks:

• Replaced vegetable oil with butter
• Added chocolate chips leftover from cookie baking

Lessons learned

Now that baking has become an official hobby of mine (I enjoy it and am slowly getting better at it), the recipes are a little less intimidating.

I’ve also learned a few tricks of the trade. For example, I let the butter sit out for about an hour to soften. Then, I cut it into small cubes so it would mix easier.

I also used a larger mixing bowl, so when I blended it all together I wouldn’t find batter between my toes again.

Oops

Since I replaced the oil with butter, it may have added to the cooking time. The box said 18 minutes in the oven. At 30 minutes with my recipe, I finally had a successful toothpick test.

The mixture came out a little “cakey;” a little moist in the middle, but hard on the edges.

Ahhhh…. That could be because I skipped the step to grease the baking dish. Never again will I ask myself, “What could go wrong this time?”

Taste-testing

My taste-tester immediately noticed the crusty edges and asked me if I’d greased the pan.

“Nope,” I said defiantly, like I meant to leave off that step.

Despite that, he dug in and said the rest of it was tasty.

I’ll take it.