when i lived with my mother, i recall her always cutting the edges off brownies. she said it was because people liked them better without the edges and they look nicer that way…and then we would all fight over eating the scraps. i never really stopped to think about the irony of nobody wanting to eat the ends while we cherished these pieces. then, a few years ago i struck up a conversation with my friend ed, who was looking for an end piece on the brownies i had brought in. it turns out there is quite the market for end pieces, so much so that they even make a pan that makes every piece an end piece. since then, i have left the end pieces on all of my bars, forgoing the nice neat look… unless of course it is for a gift platter, in which case a nice clean neat finish is important (barring a request to include them).
speaking of uniformity, i am going to make these brownie entries as “fair” as possible– none of them will include nuts or any flavoring that will be apparent (a couple recipes require coffee but swear that you can’t taste it); unless specified that they must be made in a certain size pan i will make them in the same pan, greased the same way; unless the recipe specifically calls for a certain brand of ingredient, i will be using the same brands for all of them; i will be following the recipes as exactly as possible as to avoid me making it better or worse than it should be. at the end, if the votes say “x was the favorite, but could use some y” then i will make the adjustment and make those. now, without further ado….
contestant number one: chewy, fudgy, triple chocolate brownies from cooks illustrated. i read some rave reviews on these, in fact annie’s eats said that these are the best brownies she has ever had. i figured i would start out strong!
…and now, here’s what the judges had to say:
EF- seemed to have a mocha-y bite, which I personally don’t care for
CD- 7.5 – Good texture. Not too chewy. Not too cakey. Good chocolate flavor. Consistently baked throughout.
AH- a fine mélange of taste and texture – it was a bit on the fudge side, which subtly stuck to the top of the palate and has been enjoyable to the end.
KH- Tasty, but a bit dry.
CI- not sure what I didn’t like about this brownie. I just know that it had a not-so-great aftertaste. It wasn’t anything I could really describe.
TG- took a little more effort to enjoy than the second one
KO- I liked the taste of this one better than the second
SB- Great but a little rich and heavy for my tastes. I still liked it a lot, and I liked the texture as well. But overall not as much as number 2
CE- was only the slightest bit (ever so) dryier, also, the chocolate seem more like a more bitter sweet than milk chocolate
DS- I almost tasted a cream cheese type aftertaste (not generally a fan of that)
GD- Fudge-like; Likes – Fudge taste; Disklikes- texture
CN- I like this one better, I am partial to fudgy brownies.
GR- Of the two, this is the one I DIDN’T prefer. It was nice and moist, but compared to the other, the flavor seemed a little bland
SR- Loved the texture, not so much the flavor. It was almost slightly bitter. Texture was very fudge like.
So far, coworkers are not as big of fans as these as was expected based on the online reviews
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I search for brownies with end pieces as well.
I made these before, but they didn’t really do it for me. By the way, the end pieces are my favourite!
i was a bit disappointed as well… based on the reviews i read i thought the search might have been called off with the first batch, but no…. they were good, but not the best.