TWD—Rick Katz’s Brownies For Julia AND French Silk Pie Throwdown!

Oh my goodness!!!  This week has been super crazy-busy as we’re trying to get our house on the market-ASAP.  Kevin and I flew to Utah for a quick house hunting trip in the middle of it all.  My amazing mother is here helping and doing what seems like most of the work and she watched the boys for three days while we were gone.  I have not had a moment to breathe, let alone bake and especially visit all my favorite blogs.  It’s killing me! ;)  I miss you all!  Haven’t baked a thing since last week’s TWD or barely visited any blogs.  Sigh.

But today (Monday) we planned to have a French Silk Pie Throwdown with some friends and I wasn’t about to cancel/change that.  I needed a break and baking is just what I needed.  So in between kids and some dejunking and cleaning and lunching with Mom (she had not left my house for 6 days!), I HAD to make a French Silk Pie, so in between crust and silk, I threw together Rick Katz’s Brownies for Julia.  And as I was hurrying through the recipe, I, of course ;), messed up.  But only a little bit.

I didn’t read ahead.  So I melted the butter with the chocolate, added a cup of sugar, then whisked together the other cup of sugar with the eggs.  THEN, the next thing is where I didn’t read ahead.  I whisked all the chocolate mixture in with the sugar/egg mixture.  I didn’t realize I was supposed to whip the eggs until they doubled in volume.  So I just went ahead, folded in the flour and baked these brownies that had 2 sticks of butter and 2 cups of sugar, not to mention the 4 eggs!!! in the small 9x9 inch square pan called for in the recipe.  These are not light brownies!  I was very tempted to baked this in a 9x13 inch pan, it was really a lot of batter.  But since I was in a hurry, I just threw it in the smaller pan and baked it for about 35 minutes.  Since I wasn’t too sure how these would turn out, I left out the extra chopped bittersweet chocolate.

These brownies, though I have no idea if they turned out the way they were supposed to, are a great, dense, fudgy brownie.  They were well received by everyone who ate them.  I assume by not whipping the eggs, they weren’t as light/airy as they were supposed to be. 

These did not finish baking until about 3:30 p.m.  I took them right out of the oven and put them outside on the deck where they chilled in the 20-something degree air until about 6 o’clock.  They were almost frozen by then, but were perfectly chilled.  I thought they were too rich (I know, I can’t believe I just said that about chocolate!).  But they are a good brownie.  On that note, I will probably never make them again, because that’s about double the amount of BUTTER, SUGAR and EGGS in still-my-favorite brownie (my adapted Tribute to Katharine-Hepburn Brownies) in pretty much the same size pan!  Holy cow, I just can’t do that.  I am really glad I made the time to get this week’s TWD recipe made, which was chosen by Tanya of Chocolatechic (I love her honest and honestly delicious blog!).  Tanya has the recipe on her blog.  Thanks for picking brownies for my crazy week!

Dorie says these brownies are fragile.  With my mistakes, these are not at all fragile—dense and very fudgy!

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I wanted to tell you quickly about the French Silk Pie throwdown we had with some friends.  Oh, a couple months ago, our friend, Bob and I were talking and he told me all he wanted for his birthday (which was Feb. 5) was Dan’s (another friend) French Silk Pie, which he made a few years ago and we all tasted.  Bob thought it was the most wonderful pie he’d ever had.  Dan was not with Bob and I during this conversation, but I told Bob that “oh yeah, I could make a better pie than Dan.”  So right then, I told Bob that Dan and I would have a throwdown and Bob would be the judge and pick whose pie is better.  (Then we later let Dan in on it and he was game.)  We decided this sometime back in December.  Oh, did I mention I had never made a French Silk Pie before?  Nope.  But I was certain I could and that mine would be better than Dan’s. 

During the month of January, I tried a few different recipes.  I don’t have time to tell you about the different recipes, and if you’d like my final recipe, let me know and I’ll send it to you.  We all met up tonight, Dan brought his pie and I had mine.  They were similar in looks, except Dan tried to suck-up to the judge by putting chocolate candy bars all over the top of his. ;)  But Bob did not know whose pie was whose.

Dan’s pie (B)

My pie (A)

The judge is ready to go!

Dan’s pie was thicker than mine, it was darker, and more chocolaty.  I was a little worried that would win over the judge.  I know him too well.  He loves chocolate.  Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups are one of his main food groups.   But I had hope.  My pie was lighter, creamier, and silkier. 

That is some serious pie tasting there!

There were a lot of people waiting and watching and WAITING to eat pie.  It was a close one.  And here is where I have to graciously tell you that Bob chose this pie.

What?  You can’t see what he wrote?  Okay, okay, he chose B—Dan’s pie!  Sigh.  I lost.  Sort of.  This was fun.  Over the last few weeks, it was fun to test pies and have our neighbors over to get their opinions.  Bob chose the more chocolaty pie.  I knew as soon as I cut into them and saw that Dan’s looked more chocolaty that that was the one Bob would pick.  Oh well.  It really was fun.  Now Dan and I have decided we must have more throwdowns!  And who knew—his pie had 3 ounces of unsweetened chocolate and mine only had 2.  (There were a few other slight differences, but Bob went for the more chocolaty one.  (Others in the group begged to differ on mine being better because it was silkier, but Dan won fair and square.)  Thanks for coming over for pie Bob (Happy Birthday), Tes, Berghouts, and Tippie/Heidners!  We’ll do it again soon!