Made a Mistake

...but the end product came out okay.  Phew.

I signed up to bring snacks to class tomorrow.  I have been hanging on to this recipe for Sourdough Rye Brownies for a few months.

Intriguing, right?  Brett isn’t a fan of chocolate (some sort of genetic flaw) so I decided to make them for class because I could never eat a whole pan of brownies by myself.  Well, maybe I could, but it wouldn’t be a good thing.

Early this morning, before chores, I mixed some of my sourdough starter into rye flour and water.  It was pretty thick and over the course of the four hour resting period it didn’t look like it did anything.  At noon, I mixed the lump of starter with more rye flour, five eggs (!), and sugar.  It was kind of a strange color from the bright orange yolks and brownish rye flour.  But it bubbled happily over the next couple of hours.

While the bowl of flour and eggs did its thing, I melted chocolate with butter. As I was measuring the chocolate, I discovered that I was seriously short.  The recipe takes a lot of chocolate.  I ran down to the corner market praying that they would have high quality chocolate.  They did.  When I was checking out, Laura looked at the chocolate and asked what I was making.  I told her and she screwed up her face.  It does sound weird.  Rye brownies.  She thought maybe it would be okay with sea salt on top.  Good thought.

Back home, I melted butter with the chocolate.

Then I measured out the remaining ingredients: sugar, cocoa powder and vanilla.  I mixed it all together, — starter flour mix, melted chocolate, and remaining ingredients, put it in the oven, and crossed my fingers.

It smelled divine.  And it looked pretty good too.  When I took it out of the oven I looked at the recipe to see if there were instructions on when to take the brownies out of the pan.  It said, “sprinkle the top with additional sea salt” if you want.  What?  Additional?  I hadn’t put any salt in the batter.  I went back and read the recipe.  I found salt... on the second page at the very top.  And baking soda.  OH CRAP.  I didn’t put either in the mix.  I sprinkled the top with sea salt and went out to do chores while it cooled.  I stomped from pasture to pasture.  I didn’t have time to make another batch.  They took friggin’ all day.  And, the expense of all that chocolate.  And five eggs.  OMG.

Half way through chores I went back in the house and cut myself a piece from the corner.  It was fine.   A bit gooey, but who doesn’t like a moist brownie.  And the taste was great.  As they cooled completely, they got less gooey.  Phew.  I will definitely make this again — I’m curious to see how much difference the baking soda and salt make.  I think the sourdough starter saved me; the brownies had a way to leaven even with out the baking soda.