Oh, The Smell of Chocolate!

The first week of my assignment in Wyoming is already gone.  Crazy. 

It has been really interesting to see the differences between a big hospital and a tiny facility like this.  As a travel nurse, normally my orientation consists of a day of classroom stuff like learning policies and procedures and a day or two of orientation on the unit to familiarize yourself with where things are.  At this facility I had a full 4 days of orientation this week and was introduced to everyone who works here from the housekeepers to the chief nursing officer (everyone is exceptionally nice by the way). 

The best thing is that next week I will have another day of classroom training and two shifts of orientation on the unit before I'm on my own....that's 7 days of orientation!  It's such a change of pace from my last assignment where I wasn't even given directions on how to get to the unit I was supposed to work on let alone a tour of the hospital. A good change of pace.

I had the day off today and decided that, as always, I needed to christen my new home with the smell of fresh-baked goodness from the oven. This was especially important for my apartment here because the carpet has a bit of a damp, slightly icky smell...I figure some open windows, baking soda on the carpet and air fresheners should start helping soon right?  One thing that I knew would help, (if not with the smell, at least with my morale) is the smell of warm chocolate. 

I started with this recipe from the Joy the Baker cookbook:

I made a few modifications, starting with this:

A sweet friend of mine gifted this to me and somehow it got lost in the shuffle of all my moving...a crying shame!  So rather than unsweetened chocolate I used this deliciousness.

I got all my ingredients ready.

Melting chocolate and butter together is divine, I wish that's the smell that was lingering in my apartment. Then I added the sugar and eggs and finally the dry ingredients.

Baking brownies...yum.  They don't look that pretty, and if I had any self control I could have made them look prettier by making the frosting from the recipe, but I have none.  Very shortly after this picture was taken, two generously proportioned brownies disappeared. 

So much goodness, I think I might stare at this picture forever.  Oh wait, I can go eat a brownie. That's way better than looking at a picture. 

Here's the recipe:

3/4 cup flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 stick butter

3 ounces unsweetened chocolate

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup sugar

3 eggs (the original recipe called for 2 large eggs and one large egg yolk)

1 tsp vanilla (I didn't have any, they still taste good)

(original recipe called for 1/2 cup chocolate chips, I didn't add them, but I'm sure they would have been even better)

Preheat oven to 350. Grease and flour pan, 8x8 is recommended, I used 8x11 because I have limited kitchen supplies. Whisk together dry ingredients. Bring a little water to boil in a saucepan, in a heatproof bowl add butter and chocolate.  Place bowl over but not touching the simmering water and stir until melted.  Whisk in sugars, then eggs and vanilla.  Add dry ingredients.  Fold in until well incorporated.  Add chocolate chips at this point.  Pour batter into pan and bake 25-30 minutes.

Do your best not to eat the whole pan.