Failure and Fallbacks: Let-Down Lemon Tart and Brilliant Backup Brownies

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Can I tell you the truth?  I don't always turn out amazing baked goods, despite what people say.  The reason my friends think I'm such a good cook/baker is because I usually only serve things I've already tested myself, ideally multiple times.  And there are plenty of failures along the path to deliciousness.

For example, back when I made that amazing lasagne, I also made a failure of a lemon tart (well, semi-fail, and not a fail at all according to my ever-polite guests) – trust me, it looks better than it was.  I spent all that time zesting and juicing and whisking, only to find the end product lumpy and terrifying.  I think the eggs had been cooked a bit by the acid in the lemon juice, maybe... whatever the reason, it looked foul.

The Lazy Baker Strikes Again: 'Baked' Brownies For Slackers

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The other day, I wanted a snack, but our cupboards were bare.  This is a very dangerous situation.  When we're out of snackables, I usually just eat way too much of everything else (random cold potatoes leftover from dinner, old candies from Christmas stockings, toast with butter and jam at 5pm), but occasionally I'll get up off my butt and bake.  But it has to be something easy and quick, because when I get snacky it usually means I'm either hard at work (scoff) or bored and lazy.  Enter: the lazy version of the 'Baked' brownie.

This recipe, in its original form, isn't even that involved.  But I was looking for super low-maintenance baking.  I toyed with using a one-bowl recipe from Allrecipes, but the reviews were either fantastic or abysmal, and I wasn't really up for taking the chance.  So I went back to this post from Brown Eyed Baker, for the brownies from the book 'Baked', which has been getting a ton of buzz around the food world – especially for the brownies.

Another famous recipe from Gram: Mexican Brownies!

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Remember those cookies I told you about a while back?  The ones that are amazingly delicious and addictive but a little finicky?  Or the pumpkin pie, which basically put my mom's family on the map, baking-wise?  Well, they're not the only recipes my grandmother handed down– the trump card, her ace in the hole, the ultimate indulgence, was her recipe for Mexican Brownies.

Now, I know I say 'ridiculous' a lot, but this time I mean it.  These things are ridiculous.  I mean, a whole box of powdered sugar for the frosting?  Buttermilk AND margarine in the cake?  This is serious stuff, guys.  Sugar overload, and it hurts so good.

This should be illegal...

Pin It Seriously?  This is just wrong.

See, what we're talking about here are cookies.  That taste like brownies.  But with chewy edges and cakey centers.  And this is the really naughty bit: they're cookies, so they're really easy (like, wayyyy too easy) to just pick up and pop in your mouth.

This is some dangerous genius we're dealing with here, folks.

Because we love dads, even when they don’t love chocolate.

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This past weekend was father’s day.  It was also the weekend of a huge outdoor party, complete with big bohemian tents and a pig on a spit, that the bf’s dad and stepmom hosted at their house in Oxfordshire to celebrate their joint birthdays.  They took care of all the party planning and much of the food (besides the pig) themselves, so of course I offered to help.  Which meant baking 3 trays of brownies (not too hard, but very messy) and bringing them up on the train on Friday evening (really surprisingly hard).  It also meant finding a great, easy brownie recipe (pretty difficult too).