Why Buy Desserts

So I’m going to make Fudge Topped Brownies. My extended familys’ kids are coming tonight for beer and pizza with their cool aunt. I’m making this dessert for them. When I grocery shopped yesterday I made sure I had all the ingredients. I measured out the flour, the sugar and cocoa, the baking powder. Next ingredient: walnuts. I know I have walnuts. I saw the package somewhere this week when I was writing my grocery list. “You’ve got walnuts,” my brain said. It also said, as I faintly recalled this morning, “That’s an odd place for walnuts.”

So where are those walnuts? I keep nuts in the freezer. Of course I don’t expect to find them there, since that is where they are supposed to be. I look in this cabinet and that. I look with the cereal in the pantry. I look in both refrigerators. No walnuts. There is no point in asking The Man Who Does Nothing With Food But Eat It if he has seen the walnuts. He’d only have seen them if they appeared on his plate. I’m about to go to the store for more walnuts when I get some ice out of the freezer for a glass of water and whoa! What are walnuts doing in THAT container? Okay. So my brain DIDN’T say they were in a weird place. It said they were in an odd container.

Okay. Let’s make these #$(%&$# Fudge Topped Brownies. I chop the walnuts and start adding ingredients to the mixing bowl. Yummy, yummy. People with acid reflux are not supposed to eat chocolate, but a little lick of the batter proves delicious. I grease the pan, pour in the batter and put the pan in the oven. The ingredients for the Fudge Topped part of the recipe wait on the counter to be melted together and poured over the top of the baked brownies.

Meanwhile The Man has been working on labels for a mailing for the land trust. I pop into his office to admire him – no, no, – to admire his work, though he is pretty cute on Saturday mornings. Anyway, after kissing his bald spot and listening for about five minutes about how this program or that makes labels, I return to the kitchen to clean up my Brownie baking mess. And there on the counter, in its cup measure, are the chopped walnuts. Hmmm... I quickly survey the recipe. Oops. The walnuts are not supposed to go into the Fudge Topping. They were supposed to be mixed into the dough before baking. I whip the pan out of the oven, dump the #$(#$U) walnuts on top and stir them into the now-warm dough that has thickened around the edges, the pop the pan back into the oven.

Is there any chance these brownies will continue to rise and taste like anything but bricks after having their oven time interrupted?

So I'm telling you: Just buy desserts at the bakery. That way you won’t spend your day questioning your sanity – and have to throw away the whole #$R9(&(* batch.

Stirring the Pot