I am always in a little bit of a funk after returning from a vacation. As soon as we cross the threshold back into our apartment I get a little cranky. I sit on the couch with my laptop and mope. The suitcases do not get unpacked, I do not start a load of laundry, and the last thing I want to think about is unloading the dishwasher.
Luckily, I promised my grad school class some sweet treats for our next meeting, so I was forced back into the kitchen almost immediately upon my return. I began by thinking of something simple. Chocolate chip cookies simple. Not waiting for butter to soften simple. But then, this recipe caught my eye, and I thought of the mint chips I’ve been harboring in an air-tight container since the holiday season.
As I melted the chocolate and butter, I started feeling less icky and more like myself. But when I reached my favorite part of the batter process, stirring in the flour, things didn’t thicken up. The batter was way too runny to make cookies. I added 1/4 C flour to no avail.
So I said, forget it, sprayed a 8 x 8 pan with cooking spray and made brownies instead of cookies. Disaster averted.
And you know what? With the addition of the mint chips, these serve as a great substitution for their more time-consuming cousins, grasshopper brownies. They have the texture I love, not too cakey and dry, not too fudgy and buttery, and come together super quickly.
Michelle, whose blog I enjoy, suggests measuring the ingredients by weight if the batter comes out too runny. So perhaps that’s what I’ll try next.
yum!
(with love from grad school)