Dreaming in Dubai

Living in Dubai is many things, but cheap is not one of them. I have come to learn this the hard way over my year and a half spent here. Everything costs almost twice as much if not more than it does back home in Connecticut. For a self proclaimed stingy person like me, that's not an easy thing to come to terms with. I'm known for finding things on clearance racks at 80% off. In fact, my parents and husband regularly joke that I've probably never purchased anything for full price in my entire life (that may or may not be true). Anyways, you're probably wondering what any of this has to do with my brownies. I promise, I'm getting to it! When I was visiting my parents in America last month I decided to load up on groceries, clothes and anything else I could possibly need so that I wouldn't have to spend twice as much money buying those items here. I brought back a bunch of baking supplies with me including the cutest cupcake liners I found on sale at Marshall's, baking trays, piping bags etc. So when I decided to make brownies I went to my baking drawer to pull out my brownie pan. It was only then that I realized I had forgotten to pack my brownie pan with me. Ever the hopeful person, I decided to check out my local supermarket in the hope that I could find a reasonably priced brownie pan. Low and behold, I couldn't find a single one that would cost me less than a small fortune (by my standards at least). And with the money I was spending for ridiculously overpriced cocoa powder and semi-sweet chocolate I decided it was best to forgo the brownie pan altogether. That's when I decided to use my cupcake pan to bake my brownies instead.

I'm not a huge fan of chocolate but I do love brownies and they're also my husband's favorite dessert so I had to give them a try. I was pretty nervous about making them but I found a great recipe online here. My brownies turned out really well but the only thing I wish I had done differently was to take them out of the oven earlier than I did. When I inserted my toothpick into the brownie it was still pretty liquidy inside so I decided to leave them in the oven for another 5 minutes but it made them a little bit drier than I would have liked them to be. I also think they would have turned out moister in a brownie pan so if you have one, I would definitely recommend using it over a cupcake pan. I'm probably making my brownies sound a lot worse than they actually were! Trust me, this recipe is fantastic. I would just recommend taking out the brownies a bit on the early side as a precaution. The great thing about this recipe is that it can be customized in so many ways. I added chocolate chips and lots of walnuts to mine but you can add literally anything you can think of! If you decide to try these brownies make sure let me know how they turn out!



Recipe:

3/4 cup all-purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

(Recipe courtesy of Joyofbaking.com) 

Ingredients: 
1 1/2 cup of flour
1 cup of white sugar
2 ripe mashed bananas
1 teaspoon of baking powder
1/4 teaspoon of baking soda
1/4 teaspoon of salt
2 eggs
80 grams of melted and cooled butter

I mixed all of the dry ingredients together in a bowl and whisked them well. Then I mixed all of the wet ingredients together including the mashed bananas. I then added the wet ingredients to the dry and poured the batter into cupcake liners. I baked them for about 40 minutes at 350 degrees Fahrenheit (180 degrees Celsius) and voila, muffins! I would really recommend these to someone who doesn't have much experience with baking. They were so easy to make and they turned out really well! I hope you'll try them out yourself and if you do be sure to tell me how they turn out!By the way, I bought a set of cupcake liners the other day and I thought there were 17 in the package but it turns out there were only 5! That's why some of the muffins are lined and some aren't. It turns out that 17 was a random number printed on the package but I checked later and it clearly said 5 liners! Now I'll know to double check for next time!