Brownie Pudding and An Endorsement for Pinterest

One of my loosely framed resolutions for the year was to reduce my time in front of screens, whether television or computer. Much as I do enjoy exploring the blogs of others and mindlessly sorting through craft projects, recipe ideas, and the endless array of talented artisans selling their crafts on Etsy, I also worry about the amount of time I waste in cyberspace. My fear is that, by becoming too ingrained in the virtual world, I will be unable to experience the real one without comparing my days to those depicted in the blogs of others or without making reference to some anecdote recounted by a friend on facebook.


That's not to say that the internet isn't a useful tool for connecting and sharing with people near and far. I love that I can find inspiration from people the whole world over within the space of a few keystrokes, that I can keep up to date on the lives of friends traveling abroad, and that I can even reconnect with people I thought I would never have the opportunity to meet again. The amount of knowledge that can be shared and the way that information can be so easily accessed is still absolutely incredible to me, though at times incredibly dangerous.


But the number of hours I waste aimlessly browsing the internet scares me off of it too. The thought of how many books I could have read, conversations I could have engaged in, meals I could have prepared, and experiences I could have had in the innumerable hours I've lost during the past twenty three years of my television-watching and internet-accessing life fills me with inklings of regret. So I vowed to spend less time in front of a screen this year and more time doing, being, and experiencing in the real world.


Then I found Pinterest. I had refrained from joining the pin-board social network for quite some time, aware of how quickly it would consume my rare free hours and unfamiliar with the necessity of one more social networking tool. But I began to grow more and more interested as my internet bookmarks grew increasingly overwhelming and disorganized, despite my ardent attempts to keep things methodically categorized. The idea of a visual organization system, obtainable wherever the world wide web can be accessed, was appealing to an A-type such as myself. I decided to give it a try. And I pretty quickly bought into all the hype (I'm still a staunch anti-Twitterer though!).


All this to say that Pinterest is not nearly as overrated as I had imagined it would be. In fact, it has provided me with some incredibly decadent and delicious recipe ideas, dishes I would never have otherwise found. Organized as Pinterest is, I can browse hundreds of ideas quickly, filtering through what I do and don't want to retain without wasting an inordinate amount of time. In the space of five minutes, I can find recipe ideas for the whole week, whereas pouring through food blog after food blog for the perfect seven dinners would take an hour or more. I guess eventually I might have found Tracey's version of Ina Garden's recipe for Brownie Pudding through some inadvertent path, but Pinterest brought it right to me just when I needed something chocolatey and gooey the most. 


Mike and I devoured these little pots of chocolatey goodness too quickly for me to snap a picture of them, so these shots are from my original sources. Pretty so we had stomachaches on account of the speed with which we consumed such an inordinate amount of chocolate. But the pain in our bellies was well worth the deliciousness of this brownie pudding. They were simple to make (I accidentally beat the eggs and the butter, rather than the eggs and the sugar, in step #3 and my puddings still turned out excellent!) and highly adaptable I imagine. Next time I plan to add a little Nutella to the mix and maybe I'll even try a few with peanut butter too!

Photo from Tracey's Culinary Adventures

Brownie Pudding

Ingredients

• 1/2 pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter
• 4 large eggs, at room temperature
• 2 cups sugar
• 3/4 cup cocoa powder 
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Prepare baking dish with cooking spray.
2. Place the butter in a saucepan and melt over medium-low. Set aside to cool once fully melted.
3. Sift cocoa powder and flour together into a medium bowl.
4. Beat eggs and sugar until the batter is very thick and forms ribbons. On low speed, add vanilla extract and the cocoa and flour mixture, mixing until just combined. Then pour in the melted butter, mixing until just combined
5. Spread the mixture into baking dish. Place baking dish inside large roasting pan, adding hot water to roasting pan until it reaches halfway up the sides of the baking dish.
6. Bake 50-60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted about 2 inches from the edge comes out partially clean.
7. Transfer baking dish to a wire rack to cool. Serve with vanilla ice cream. Enjoy!