Me at the moment

Makes my heart smile….dogs in cones

My favorite decor…..whimsical

What is keeping me up at night….FDR

On my shopping list…..a staple gun

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Sweet Melissa Sundays: Chocolate Walnut Brownies

Don’t you love it when you set out to bake or cook from a recipe and you have all of the ingredients on hand? Makes you feel like a bonafide foodie, no?

It was a late weeknight when I pulled the Sweet Melissa book down from the shelf, ran my finger down the list of ingredients, and almost keeled over when I realized I didn’t have to make a trip to the grocery store.

I’m still at once-a-month SMS baker; I really wanted to bake with chocolate, so I was happy to see “Chocolate Walnut Brownies” selected by Tiffany of A Spoonful and A Heap. Visit her blog and check out the complete recipe

Confession: I did have to improvise to avoid a trip to my neighborhood supermarket. I did not have the 4 oz of unsweetened chocolate that the recipe calls for. However, I did have unsweetened cocoa, which conveniently provided the recipe for a substitution of unsweetened chocolate: 3 tbs of cocoa powder plus 1 tbs of oil = 1 oz chocolate. Perfect!

Or so I thought. The brownies turned out somewhere in the middle on a scale between “ok” and “fine but nothing special.” Lesson learned? Don’t make substitutions when a recipe calls for “best quality chocolate”. Additionally, I think some chocolate chips mixed into the brownie might have added some needed chocolateyness, which is what I want when I eat a brownie.

All in all: good, but not great. I would have to try the recipe again with the proper chocolate to give it a fair chance!

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