This post is a tribute to Chocoholics (not so)Anonymous because – ummm – you’ll figure why by the end of this post.
The Kitchen is in reality a well concealed battlefield. I am not talking writing off topic here, this is where the story of my adventure with chocolate begins. And so, the kitchen is a rather deceptive battlefield, it ravages war on you when you least expect it; when you are deeply mesmerized in the wonderful dishes that you’re experimenting with everyday.
No brownie points for guessing that I am going to rant about my latest (mis)adventure in the kitchen that involved a character called chocolate. Extra brownie points for guessing that din’t have anything to do with the dish – anything with chocolate can’t go wrong in terms of taste.
I have a serious chocolate addiction – each time I see the word chocolate splashed across the computer screen, I yearn to have some. I am fanatical about chocolate, so fanatical that I can order a large portion of a dessert that is dunk in oodles of chocolate and call it dinner. I specially have a weak spot for sinful brownies and all brownie based dishes. So when Kamini posted her quest for the perfect chocolate brownie and I followed this up with some reading, I had to make myself a sinful chocolatey treat.
I have been wanting to try this recipe for Warm Walnut Brownie Pudding at Epicurious for sometime and this seemed like a perfect opportunity. The recipe was perfect with no need for substitution, I had all ingredients on hand and successfully put them all together into one yummy tasting cake batter that was so eager to be baked. For a change clever prepared me also made the chocolate syrup the recipe required in advance.
And so I took the perfect batter made from a perfect recipe in a perfect baking dish to put into my beloved oven. Splash!!! I have no idea what happened – I have been scratching and scratching my head, but my memory fails me. In an instant, half of the syrup along with half the batter was all over the kitchen. The baking dish with the rest of the batter (now mixed in parts with the syrup) was still in my hand suspended between my bewildered face and the open oven.
When I say “all over the kitchen” I mean literally all over. On all the racks, on top of the oven, near the sink behind me, on the floor, on the fridge, on all the washed and drained vessels and on the ceiling (I am not kidding, I swear there was a spot). Chocolate had invaded my kitchen. It was 11 pm in the night – my perfect baking time and not so perfect cleaning time.
Here’s a left over piece of the Warm Walnut Brownie Pudding. I did bake with the rest of the batter. My other half had dug into routine chunks from the kitchen and was at work on this last piece before I begged him to stop for a precious photograph for the blog.
Update: I have edited the photograph (original is here) for brightness to prove that the object pictured isn’t a piece of meteorite. See there are walnuts on top.
As you can see the pudding turned out, errrrr, rather flat – though it was the richest, most moist chocolate bake I have ever had.
It took me three hours in total to wash all dishes and scrub the kitchen. It took another two hours to organize the kitchen. But then we all know that the adages around “hard work” are stuff that fairy tales are made of – don’t we? Sigh, I was rewarded with the sight of a few spots of chocolate near the kitchen sink today morning. I am now firmly resigned to my “kitchen with chocolate spots” destiny. It’s been four days since the disaster and I can still smell chocolate in my kitchen – not that I mind, it’s the perfect antidote for my chocolate addiction. I am off chocolates for a while now.
The story doesn’t end here though. Now that I have shared my harrowing experience in the kitchen, I tag Asha (so what if you just did a few memes, please dedicate a post to this one), Hema (trying my friend’s tactic of waking up QTOL), Padma (have you ever ever gone wrong sometime?) and Raaga (tit for tat, you tag me, I tag you) to share their worst kitchen disaster and pass on the tag. The “Nightmare in the Kitchen” tag begins.
PS: Being off chocolate and other such claims are meant to be dismissed as lies – a big bag of lies. Just writing this post makes me want to go have some chocolate.
LOL! That looks like meteorite from Mars!!
On the ceiling! What the heck were you doing? How did it get there? 😀
I have a perfect disaster story for you, I will repost it at Aroma. Short but disaster all the same!!:))
Well..atleast you got to eat half of it.
To make you drool more, I just baked Chocolate cupcakes!! Next week, you will see them in all it’s glory!
😀 rofl – meteorite tasted quite yummy ok – if only I’d been able to bake it properly, it would have been presentable. i think the chocolate syrup hit the oven top and then sprung back on to the ceiling 😀 – or may be those are just other brown
spots.
meteorite has been edited and now according to rachna it looks like chocolate halwa – now this is what I call progress
I was just thinking what Asha said. Too bad yr hubby dint give you time even to focus :p.
Focus – huh? What does that mean? 😉 . The last thing I do when I am taking a pic is focus 😀 lol. Ask Srivalli and Nirmala on how I take pics. The pic was an after thought actually. I din’t realize that the pudding would be gone so soon. 😀
Hahahhaa…I am so amused by Asha’s comment!! sorry about the meteorite Lakshmi:) but you know what, as long as its chocolate, its tempting in any form!!
you’re right. thank god for small mercies.
moral of the story: don’t cook with chocolate. eat it neat 😀
The availability of dark chocolate at the store is inversely proportional to the intesity of my cravings – I am left to make something yummy out of cocoa very often. If I had chocolate, I wouldn’t have bothered 😀
boy..do i hate clean-up and that 2 at night…esp. when you want brownies ..u end up cleaning them and smelling them..it would drive me crazy to walk in my home..smell chocolates and get none to eat..c’mon..go back and try the brownie making again….
Thanks Rajitha – your comment made me feel better – you’ve nailed how I felt. Perhaps in another week’s time.
haha….Nice experiment…Loved reading every bit of it…..hmmmm…regarding the mess and clean-up….happens to all of us at sometime or the other 🙂
God…….Ur love for chocolates………amaZing 🙂
thanks sirisha. your comment made me feel better. now someone tag her 😉 – i want to know her worst cleaning episode.
hilarious post lakshmi… why taking chance??? simply eat chocolate 😉
refer to reply to bee’s comment above. that is why the risk 🙂
I had a good laugh after reading your post. I understand all the pain you underwent during the process of clean-up. But it was fun to read.
You know what happened yesterday. My hubby set the tandoori chicken on fire. I literally dragged my son and ran out leaving my poor hubby behind. Thank god he managed to put it out immediately. No harm done to anybody. Not even the chicken. Only the masala drippings on the foil paper got burned.
Anyway…I’m an absolute chocoholic and I even fight with my son to have some of his. I’m not joking. That cake looks so good to me.
LOL!! Someone please tag Kribha.
Though I didnt manage to bake any chocolate recipes so far in my oven, as I am not chocoholic but ur brownie plight has really horrified me! I think I am better with the chocolate slabs eating out of their wrapper than playing around n making fudge (fuss) of it 🙂 Loved reading ur depiction Lakshmi!
I do have Kitchen blunder stories and will share sometime soon, thanks for tagging!
actually brownies aren’t difficult padma, but if you are clumsy oaf like me, you’ll end up with disasters like this.
Hahahahha.. hilarious experience with (our/my) dear choclate.. y did u torture it soooo much…:D.. hehehe….Loved ur post lakshmi.. U have a good sense of humor…
U= me, lakshmi?? you sure? i was sulking for day after this Siri 😀
Fell off my chair laughing… I can just imagine the whole thing taking place and that too at past 11 pm..:). Very nice post. I promise to bring you a nice chocolate puddingy brownie when we meet ( you did tell me you will make up for the one I missed, didn’t you?).
:nono: stick to your fruit tart and i’ll make this pudding and get 😀 – no mess this time.
thats really so funny…but chocolate in any form is tempting…had you told me I would’ve come home to help you eating it off…:)
no offer of help in the cleaning?? :hmm:
Have to think hard… have had quite a few… will have to pick one 🙂
or weave all of them into a tall tale – you love writing don’t you? 🙂
Poor you…But its good thing that the choclate brownie wasnt hot….!
But one thing is for sure that Your disaster become somany peoples entertainment….If it was me I wouldnot have told to anybody like this,and you have wrote this experience in an interesting and humourous way ….that nobody can resist laughing…:)
Thanks Rajeshwari. Yep, it wasn’t hot, imagine if this had happened post baking!!! Don’t worry, I’ll make sure you tell your worst tale. Someone tag Rajeshwari
asloalso. 😀heeee its looks like chocolate halwa! shame about the choc explosion in the kitchen….
thank you thank you – so atleast the editing has made it progress from meteorite to chocolate halwa – 😀 – it was exhauting to clean then though its something that i see as “rather entertaining” now
Good try waking up ‘you-know-who’. I am up and will jot down something soon. Loved your chocolate’holi’ story. But as you said, you cant go wrong with chocolate….I can happily drink chocolate cake batter:)
meteorite…LOL
that is such a unfortunate accident, my sympathies are with you dear!! i guess we will never know why it happened 😉
we will never know richa, it is destined to go down into the list of the world’s greatest mysteries 😉
Oh No! As funny as it may sound now am sure the cleaning-up, that too so late at night, was no fun.
This reminds me of the time I wanted to make paal payasam for my mom who was visiting me for the first time here (I was in the last month of my pregnancy). I read somewhere that it could be pressure cooked so that’s what I was trying.. when the first whistle came there was payasam (milk) all over the kitchen (walls, floor, stove). We had just scrubbed the entire place spotless in view of my mom’s arrival and now I had this on hand to clean! Clean we did and ended up being late to pick up my bewildered mom, who was anxiously waiting for us to show up! Gosh.
OMG – Milk all over the place is messier – how did you get rid of the smell? Hope no one got hurt in the process
Even the unedited meteorite is tempting me :)..
…so beware next time..and keep in mind the Horlicks slogan..for the wicked ingredient too..Appidiye sappiduven..the best revenge..:D..he he..
My comment on this yesterday is not appearing here…why?
Hahaha.. I can see the walnuts on the top.. and i dont think it to be some kind of meteorite 🙂
Reading ur post, i remembered a similar situation I faced, becoz of hubby dear… he wanted some banana milk shake, and after putting the milk, banana and sugar… he forgot to put the lid and started the mixie… and LO! there was milk mixture every where.. and yes, even on the ceiling!!! It was tough cleaning the stuff 🙂
Will be posting mine today at Aroma!!:D
Enjyed reading ur post…chocolate in any form is tempting…anyways its nice that atleast to tried it…
Cleaning the kitchen at 11pm my goodness,none of will like doing it, all of us do have an experience or two on such incidents
Amused but thiking of the aftermath..am not very amused…have been through several of these situations..but always while using the mixer…atleast you got to eat it…i never ever did..
just a suggession if you did the baking in pyrex,recently ther hae been stories of pyrex being blown up just when they open the oven doors,dont know the reason why,but read in newspaper sobe careful.
anonymous
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