Icing Sugar Brownies
Brownies are the hardest working treat on the planet. They have so much pressure to be perfect. Everyone is always looking for “the perfect brownie”. The one with the most chocolate, the fudgiest texture, the fanciest topping. They have to be everything for everyone and, you know what, that level of expectation is too much. Even for a brownie. I know for some people they’re the go-to bake when they’re having a bad day (among those people who muster up the energy to bake when they’re having a bad day) but I still think we should cut them some slack. Chocolate chip cookies, too now that I think about it. They’re also held to ridiculous internet standards of perfection.
Nothing you make in your own kitchen in the privacy of your own home has to be perfect. Most of the time pretty good will be more than sufficient. When it comes to brownies I’m going to hazard a guess that you have A LOT of wiggle room because they are still, in the end, brownies. Like pizza, they’re hard to truly mess up. The only thing that’s going to make your result seem disappointing is if you go in with high expectations. Keep your expectations low is the mantra I live by and I’m happy most of the time.
My expectations for these particular brownies was that they were going to help me use up some of the substantial back stock of icing sugar I had somehow amassed. It was like I was preparing for a postapocalyptic future where my survival depended entirely on being able to quickly make five gallons of icing. I don’t know what happened there. I was also short on butter so I needed to use oil. Wanted to use oil, to be honest, because I have very fond memories of box mix brownies and their use of oil. And I had some leftover chocolate from Easter that looked useful. That’s it. That’s all I needed these brownies to do- transform some extraneous things in my kitchen into one appetizing thing.
Job done. They’re great brownies. I even overcooked them a bit and they were still great. Were they perfect? Nope. Doesn’t matter. What does that even mean? We ate them plain, we crumbled them over ice cream, we gave some to the neighbors. And that’s more than enough for one brownie to handle, I think.
