by Megan Steele

Created on: October 12, 2008   Last Updated: October 31, 2008

I love to cook and I love to bake. So much so that five years ago, I went to culinary school. I graduated with straight A's and a little bit of a cocky attitude. I knew SO much about cooking and baking that I would never make any sort of culinary mistake again. My goofs of the past were done. No more funny looking made up cookie dough. No more undercooked meat. I now knew how to make a perfect flaky pie crust and a fantastic Hollandaise. I knew the secrets to making bread, chocolate mousse, ice cream, souffles and I knew what the heck a sacher (not soccer, as I first thought) torte was. On top of the fact that I'd been cooking and baking since I was tall enough to reach the stove, I figured I was invincible in the kitchen.

Then I had a baby. One sleep deprived evening, I decided my husband and I needed some chocolate. Some of those fabulous bite sized brownies you can get in the store these days sounded absolutely to die for. I had all the ingredients I needed, I had a miniature cupcake pan to put the batter in, and my darling husband was keeping an eye on the baby. Now, I've been making brownies since I was one. Not a difficult task at all, even with some of the more involved recipes I've tried since graduating from culinary school. The recipe was one I'd used for about fifteen years, from my uncle's mother. Fantastic, chocolatey and easy to make. I mixed up the batter, put it in the pan, and put it in the oven to bake. Twenty minutes later, the oven timer went off. I opened the oven and pulled out the pan. Something didn't look right. The brownies hadn't really risen at all and they looked really wierd. I tested them with a toothpick and it came out gooey. I popped them back in the oven, figuring the oven wasn't calibrated right. Five minutes later, they still didn't look right, but the toothpick wasn't quite so gooey. I set the pan on the cooling rack to let the carryover cooking finish them off. About thirty minutes later, I went to take the brownies out of the pan and couldn't get any of them out. They were all stuck like they were superglued to the pan. I thought and thought, reviewing what I had done when I mixed up the batter. I couldn't for the life of me figure out what went wrong. I left the pan on the counter to deal with in the morning because I was so mad that the stupid recipe had failed for some reason. Then I went to bed.

Right before I fell asleep, I started to laugh out loud. My husband asked what was so funny. I told him I had figured out what I did wrong with the brownies. I had completely forgotten to add the eggs. I wound up poking holes in the cupcake tin to get one of the brownie pucks out and then just threw the whole thing away. It just goes to show that "pride goeth before a fall". I'm not quite so cocky in the kitchen anymore!

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