Super Quick and Easy (Microwaveable) Brownies

Ladies and Gentlemen, a confession. 

I am an absolute and unabashed chocoholic. The darker, the better, and I can never get enough. Today I'm sharing with you one of my favorite last-minute-must-get-out-the-door recipes. Its for those days you arrive home sweaty and frantic twenty minutes before a dinner you've been invited to...thirty minutes away. This is great for potlucks, hostess gifts, spontaneous gatherings and late night meltdowns.  I first got this recipe from my best friend Clara, a prodigious baker, who used it as a bakesale contribution in high school whenever she overslept.  Its incredibly easy to put together (in one bowl), uses ingredients we always have around the house, and best of all, it's practically fool-proof. Seriously. Even Karl made it (while I yelled instructions from the shower while simultaneously brushing my teeth and writing a card).

 
And did I mention you can bake it in an oven or a microwave? And that the later takes all of six minutes? Yeah. It's awesome. They also happen to taste pretty darn good.

Here's Clara's recipe for Super Quick and Easy
(Microwaveable) Brownies:

Ingredients

115 grams butter (1/2) cup
1 cup sugar 
2 eggs
200 gram dark chocolate, chopped
1/2 cup flour
1/4 cup cocoa
1 /2 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda


Instructions

If you have a pan or pot that is oven/microwave proof, great.  You'll be able to mix and bake this all in one go. If not, grab any old pan/pot and transfer your batter before you bake.

Melt butter on the stove. Turn heat to low and add sugar. MIX WELL about three or four minutes with a fork until mixture is fully emulsified. This is the only really important step. The batter will become thicker and paler and the sugar grains should all disappear. If you proceed too quickly, the brownies won't turn solid and will taste fatty.
 

1. Melt butter, 2. Add sugar, 3. Mix extensively until thick and pale, 4. Add eggs

Emulsified butter and sugar? Good. Now take off the heat and add half the chocolate, mixing until melted and integrated. Remember, the better the quality of the chocolate used, the better the brownies taste! A dash of coffee powder will sometimes help compensate for lower quality chocolate. When mixture is brown, add  eggs and and mix till combined. Add all the rest of the ingredients in one go.

For microwave:

Microwave your batter on high for one minute. Then, add the rest of the chopped chocolate and mix with a fork. Return to microwave for five minutes. If the brownies are unfinished, keep microwaving in 1 minute intervals till they are done. My microwave usually needs six minutes total to finish the job.

For oven:

Add the rest of the chopped chocolate and bake brownies in oven at 190°C (375°F) for twenty minutes. Voila!


Let brownies cool and enjoy! They're even better the next day....

Look up at the Sky!

-Zanna

PS. Tragically, no pictures of the finished product...it got eaten too fast!

PPS. Try adding some chopped nuts sprinkled on top, its even more delicious.

A belated post on our Merry Little Christmas

My parents smooching in front of the tree at Hackische Höfe

I return to by little blog project after a longish break due to the internet limitations of travel. But more on that later.  First, a look back to the holiday season!

I love coming home any time of the year, but coming home for Christmas is particularly special. Seeing all the decorations I've grown up with, chipped and worn as they're hauled out year after year, the recipes that make the house smell like cinnamon and the sound of scissors on wrapping paper from behind closed doors...its just so warm and happy. I think most young adults feel the same, snuggley and safe, when surrounded by the traditions that mean we're home. 

The part of the holiday season I love most is the onslaught of family and friends descending on Berlin from various continents and manifold adventures to freeze our butts off and exchange love and news. One highlight was seeing Clara, my best friend from high-school. She lives in Scotland and although we text and skype regularly there's really nothing like sitting down for a meal together with good friends. We also got a visit from Sam,  a childhood friend from when my family was living in NYC. He and his girlfriend came to tourist around Berlin and even though we hadn't seen each other since we were both eleven, Zelda (my sis) and I had so much fun with both of them. Its funny how little we grow up. Sam is exactly the same at 22 as he was at 11, plus some facial hair and a salary. You'd think that two kids who grew up together would meet much later and reconnect as adults but what actually happens is we meet up and just regress back to being kids. We made chocolate chip cookies and consumed about half the dough, ran around town and giggled in supermarkets, and there was even an intense and prolonged discussion on monopoly strategy. It was great to see him again, and to meet his lovely girlfriend as well!

Xmas Dinner: goose, knödel, sauerkraut and rosenkohl!

For Christmas itself we always drive to my grandmothers house a few hours north of here. We had fun on the way there singing along to all the songs on the radio in a horribly off-tune chorus and on the way back we had a huge three hour family fight, everyone yelled at everyone and we achieved catharsis by the time we arrived at our front door. Ah, such is family. 

Our Christmas Tree! (Yes, with real candles, as per tradition!)

Look up at the Sky!

--Zanna

Introductions

And now, Ladies and Gentlemen: Let's meet the cast!

Bay Area Beach: The Family at Play!

Zanna (aka Me)
Twenty-something, trilingual, trying to be an adult and so grateful to be failing terribly!
Things I love: red peppers, frozen raspberries, dark chocolate, traveling, studying medicine, good books, evenings that end with the kitchen a mess and covered in vanilla sugar.
Things I hate: cheese.
(I know that makes me persona non grata with some people. Sorry, can't stand the stuff)

Karl (aka The Boyfriend)

Karl et Moi

Also studies medicine, started in the same year as me but now taking a semester off to do research on tuberculosis. We had not one but several meet-cutes as the universe kept pushing us together and pulling us apart like an accordion. Finally got together, survived half a year of long distance (me: Paris, him: Lausanne) and then we both called uncle and moved back to the same city. Much better. Just celebrated our two year anniversary and still going strong, due mostly to his inexhaustible patience for my many crazy schemes and idiosyncrasies.

The Roommates 

Sophie holds me up in the Bolivian salt flats

My roommate since we moved into this lovely apartment on the edge of the woods (and a sleep-in-friendly ten minute ride to uni) is the unshakable Sophie, fellow med student and port in any storm. She's a scheduled, orderly, and utterly endearing vegetarian who loves baking and "basteln" with her three nieces. Sorry, there are some words that just don't translate. Also crashing here on a semi-permanent basis is her Chinese-American boyfriend Pete, whom she met in Australia the summer after first year. He's a whiz with computers and card games, except Rommey with we girls always win. Home is cozy, there's usually something delicious in the kitchen, and with a revolving door of residents, spontaneous parties can happen anytime from breakfast to bedtime (and beyond. Pillow fights.)

The Family

Sunbathing in Chapada Diamantina, Brasil

Mama, Papa, and my sister Zelda: the fabulously funky foursome. Zelda is three years younger and studying something math-y and computer-y in Rotterdam (one of Europe's coolest cities. Believe it!). Parents live in Berlin, both academics, both work and travel like there's no tomorrow.
We interrupt each other, text constantly, and have been first on the dance floor at every family wedding in living memory.
I'm also close to my slightly more extended family, Paternal Grandparents and Paternal Aunt who live in sunny California and my cousin Brooks who lives in NYC with his girlfriend Deedee.


The Best Friend

Scottish sunset with Clara and Charlie

Clara is lovely, loony, and LDS--a great combination, by the way.  We've been friends for a billion gazillion years (aka since middle school). She's one of my few friends who isn't in medicine (med stu's tend to cluster, its not a good thing). She's originally South African, raised in Europe, studied anthropology and archaeology and now lives in Edinburgh with her amazing husband of one year, Charles. Charlie is the exactly the kind of guy you would wish for your best friend. Kind, calm with a sense of humor as dry as the Sahara and the perfect mix of responsible adult and take-it-as-it-comes. They are a fascinating couple to converse with on just about any topic and she's my one and only talk-about-absolutely-anything friend. Everyone should have one of those.

That's everyone! Well, not everyone of course, but the ones that count. We'll see who else pops up in this blog as time goes on.

Look up at the Sky!

--Zanna