Sweet Decadenze

The first time I saw the picture of these cute brownie buttons on page 107 of Baking From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan, I knew I have to try making these petite cookies when I have the time to.  Trying this recipe, however, wasn’t on my priority list - I planned to bake some souffles first - until I tasted the brownies from a famous joint (where people would queue for hours to buy their muffins) and thought their brownies are really nothing to rave about.

And so, that was how my enthusiasm in brownies rekindled quite unexpectedly and prematurely.

The preparation steps before sending a typical brownie batter into the oven are expectantly easy.  This recipe is no exception.  It was so quick to prepare that the brownies were baking in the oven and the kitchen was once again specklessly clean in less than half an hour.

This is not to say that I did not encounter any difficulty at all.  The optional glaze of some melted white chocolate swirl atop the brownie buttons looked deceivingly easy to achieve, however they were anything but that.  It is highly possible that the scrooge in me played me out - stinging on the amount of Valrhona Ivoire was apparently not a wise choice.  And so, I had to sacrifice that endearing little swirl in exchange for some decorative sugar.

The Valrhona Guanaja in the brownie itself and the Ivoire as the glazing gives rise to a rich brownie with some sweetening in the form of the glaze.  I really don’t mind this recipe, but I prefer my brownies to have nuts and stuff inside, so there will be some tweaking the next time I bake these little buttons again.