Making Brownies for Neil

My dear Neil has had a very difficult week with falls, lots of medical appointments, and MRI and other tests, as well as lots of back pain.  So I decided to make him some home cooked brownies to cheer him up.  I started looking through my home assembled recipe book and found his mother's old brownie recipe which his family loved.  The ingredient list included "one square" of unsweetened chocolate.

So I looked at the box of Baker's Unsweetened Chocolate that I had in the cupboard to discover that they had changed the sizing of the squares. They said on the package that four squares equalled one ounce.  Well that did not enlighten me at all as all my old recipes talk about "squares" without mentioning how many ounces they were so I had no idea.

I went online to Baker's chocolate (which is now owned by Kraft) and searched and searched to find out what the new equivalent is.  Finally I discovered that four of the new squares (which total one ounce) are equal to one of the old squares.  You think they would explain this on the box as so many recipes handed down through families just talk about "squares" as if everyone knew what that meant.

So I decided to try the recipe recommended on the Kraft/Baker's website instead of Neil's mother's recipe. Click here for the recipe.

You are instructed to melt the chocolate and butter together in the microwave on "high" which I have never seen before.  Usually you need to do it on "low" to avoid burning.  But they must have adapted the chocolate to melt by microwaving on high.

You fold in toasted pecans at the end of mixing the ingredients.

The baked brownies actually turned out darker in colour on top than shown in this picture.  I decided not to ice them as they are quite rich and chocolatey as is.  Very good - they passed the "Neil" test.