Broken Oven :(

Well as you probably guessed from the title, my oven is broken!  The touchpad broke last night. I am very unhappy about this for many reasons.  First, no baking for the time being, and as a baking addict, this is quite unsettling.  Also, I just bought this oven for my mom in August for $2500, and if you ask me, that is a lot of money and it should last more than half a year!  Yes, it is still under warrantee, but that didn't help last night, when Nick and I were ready to make empanadas!

I did manage to sneak in a batch of amazing brownies before it broke, luckily.  It was Jay's birthday and he likes chocolate, so I decided to try some brownies from scratch and top them with mocha frosting.  As a person who is not a huge chocolate fan, it means a lot for me to say that a brownie is good!  But they were so cakey and delicious, and the frosting had just enough coffee flavor!  My mom, who basically hates everything, loved them and said they were the best thing I have baked.  I'd bake them again someday... if I had a working oven :(   Anyway, I got them out just in time, because when I went to shut the oven off... it wouldn't. It was stuck on!  We had to flip the breaker to get it shut off, and now it's no good at all.  I wonder how long it will be until I can bake again!  Hmph.

I'm in quite the funk tonight.  No oven, and back to work after a week off tomorrow.  Argh!

Recipe:
Cakey Brownies with Mocha Frosting
From the February 2012 Food Network Magazine  Insert: 50 Brownies

Brownies:
1 3/4 cups flour
3 tablespoons cocoa powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 sticks butter
2  1/2 cups brown sugar
1 cup water
6 ounces chopped unsweeteed chocolate (just noticed that I used semisweet... I guess my brownies were extra sweet!)
5 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla

Frosting:
1 teaspoon instant espresso (I just used instant coffee granules)
1 tablespoon water
1 stick butter
1  1/4 cups confectionary sugar
shaved chocolate for garnish  (not surprisingly, I skipped this.  I'm all about ugly food)

Pre-frosting!

1.  Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.  Coat a 9-by-13-inch pan with cooking spray (I actually lined my pan with tin foil, and then used butter to grease it since I am out of spray.  It came out perfectly).

2. Whisk flour, cocoa powder, salt, and baking powder in a bowl.

3.  Bring butter, brown sugar, and water to a simmer in a saucepan.  Off the heat, whisk in chocolate; cool slightly.



4. Whisk in 5 eggs one at a time.  Whisk in vanilla.

5. Stir in the flour mixture.

6.  Spread into the pan; bake 3-35 minutes.

7. For frosting, dissolve 1 teaspoon instant espresso (or instant coffee)  in water.  Beat this with butter and confectioner's sugar.  Wait until the brownies are completely cool to frost.  Sprinkle with shaved chocolate.

Don't feel too bad for them... Delilah helped herself to a couple brownies herself.  Apparently chocolate does NOT kill dogs.