7/100: Gluten free brownies(?!)

Hello friends!

This week I had the pleasure of participating in a bake-off with my friends Kevin and Dani! Kevin made scones, and I made brownies! I also had the pleasure of my friend, Rin, moving back into town. I invited her over to bake and she asked "can we make something gluten free?!" Killing two birds with one stone I decided, yes, we absolutely can, and they will be brownies! It was a risk, but efficiency is my strength ;)

We used a New York Times Cooking recipe (get used to these) and made these brownies. Looking at the recipe picture, they looked a little flat, but I went with it. Let me tell you: I thought making muffins was easy. Making brownies was WAY easier! Brownies are essentially chocolate and butter with a pinch of sugar, salt, flour, and vanilla. The one tweak was that we used Gluten Free mix that had baking soda/powder that would create some rise in the brownies. This recipe called for absolutely no baking soda/flour/rising agent so I was unsure of what the end result would be, but I promised Rin something gluten free and Dani and Kevin brownies, so forward we marched!

I took to melting the chocolate and butter on a saucepan while Rin carefully buttered the parchment paper. I've never seen the "buttering parchment paper" trick, but it seemed to work! As I stirred and stirred and caught up with Rin about life and stirred the butter some more she said something that proved to be true: butter and chocolate melt very slowly and then all at once. It seemed like forever for this baking to get started, but once the chocolate melted, everything moved quite fast! You put in the eggs, put in the sugar, vanilla, salt, and flour and then pour it into the pan.

Before.. how will it turn out??

Because we used a different type of flour and a different type of pan, we knew we would have to play the baking time by ear (eye?). We set the timer for the lower amount (20 minutes), and I believe I pulled them out at 30 minutes. The end result??

After! Brownies!

Brownies! These looked incredibly expanded and fluffy. We figured it was because of the gluten free dough, but we continued on. We let them cool and tried the brownies

My baking partner in crime!! Thanks Rin!

Brownie!

They were GOOD! Incredibly crumbly, which I think was in part because the brownies hadn't cooled fully and maybe because of the gluten free flour, but seriously so delicious. I had literally just sprinkled salt in (the recipe didn't call for an amount), but I could definitely taste the salt foil and it was incredible.

I was a little nervous what Kevin would think. he specifically requested "not cakey" which I really had no handle on the meaning of. But, last night we met at the climbing wall and had a baking exchange! I gave them the single brownie left (bless my roommates and Rin for loving my baking!) and Kevin said: "this is perfect." Honestly, I don't really remember what he said, but I think he may have used a more emphatic word than perfect. What a relief! I was only disappointed that I couldn't give them more. I suppose we'll just have to have more bake-offs in the future! Especially because that cinnamon scone you made I put away in a minute flat. Yum!!

Cinnamon scone from bake-off. Thanks Dani and Kevin!

I had a really great time baking with Rin! She was an amazing baking partner and we definitely had that silent "I know what to do next and how to help you" thing going on that I shared with Vy and Laura. Turns out she loves baking, so I look forward to many bakes with her in the future!

Up next are chocolate crinkle cookies. They hold a place near and dear to my heart and I'll tell you why in the next post :)!