You can all breathe a sigh of relief; not only am I back at blogging, but my wonderful mother bought me a cookbook. Yes, I, Audrey Jeanette, own (and stare longingly at) a cookbook. I haven't made anything from the book yet (hence the staring) but I plan to!
This fall, I moved off campus into a quaint little apartment, with a real kitchen, which means that I have the ability to use a stove, oven AND microwave, so you can only imagine all of the "food" I will be creating! Whether people will actually want to eat that food... well... we'll find out.
My room mate has this orchid. This story has a point, I promise. As of this past spring, this orchid consisted of a single stalk and some dried up leaves. I felt that all hope was lost as far as caring for and reviving this plant, but the plant's owner (Brooke Wheeler) disagreed. I bet Brooke a tray of brownies that the plant was dead, and she bet me a tray of brownies that it was not. This is what that plant looks like now:
Needless to say, I owe Brooke a pan of brownies....
Everything was going smoothly until I read the back of the box. I had already mixed half the ingredients before I realized that I needed 2/3 cup of vegetable oil. We didn't have any of that. I read online that applesauce was sometimes a great alternative to oil in baking, but if we don't have vegetable oil, do you think we're going to have applesauce?
I put my creative mind to work and decided that melting 2/3 cup of butter was just as good. I mean, it basically does the same thing, but tastes better. Who doesn't like a nice, solid cup of margarine?
After melting the butter, I added it to the mix. It took a while to completely fold into the brownie batter, (did you like my lingo drop?) but I was patient. I shortened the cooking time by about fifteen minutes because I was told by a very wise baker (my mother) that butter cooks faster than oil. I'm not going to lie, I was worried about the outcome, but look at these beauties!
The moral of the story is: when in doubt, use butter.
