A baking duel. One recipe. Two bakers. It was on.

Our co-worker challenged Whitney and me to a baking duel. Not a bake-off with multiple recipes or slight variations. The same brownie recipe on the same day at the same time.

Really, I think he found “the best brownie recipe ever” and wanted someone to make it for him. Or… two people to make it for him. We were just the suckers that fell for it – or bakers who love any excuse to try out a new recipe.

The duel was set for Friday before spring break. Sure enough, for my first North East winter, it snowed – like 7 inches. It snowed so much that we had a “code red.” Unfortunately (or I guess fortunately since I’m the one that gets them), a code red in the army is not the same as a code red in the marines (and by marines, I mean the fake marines in the “a few good men”). A code red for us means that civilians do not have to be at work. But the duel must go on!

We showed up. So did the rest of our office. The rest of the building was gone, but our office was there. They were there for the duel. (Ok… Maybe they weren’t there for the duel – we are all just work obsessed and come in even when we don’t have to.)

The duel went off and the craziest thing happened. The brownies tasted very similar! The colors were different because there were different cocoas and one was thicker than the other, but I can honestly say they both were awesome.

This recipe is nice because it just calls for cocoa. I don’t always have unsweetened baking chocolate squares or dark chocolate bars, but I do always have cocoa.

Here is the recipe. I thought it was a little silly the was he says to cook the chocolate until you say “oww” when you put your finger in it. As it turns out, that is the perfect way to describe it!

Enjoy!