Uncooperative Gluten Free Chocolate Espresso Brownies and the Trifle that Saved the Day!

We’ve finally been able to book my best friend from university, Kim and my ‘birthday pedicures’! I say, finally, because our birthdays were in July (she is 11 days older than I — and yes, I take it where I can get it!) and we have both been so busy, we haven’t had a chance to plan something! She and hubby Mike are coming over Saturday morning, we’ll have a coffee first so they can see our new landscaping and then Kim and I will walk up to the village for our pedi’s. The guys will probably walk over to High Park (High Park is about 400 acres and is about a 15 minute walk from our house). It’s a little like Central Park in NYC; it has some wildlife, lots of vegetation and a couple of ponds. It’s a beautiful piece of nature in the middle of the city! About an hour later, we’ll meet for lunch in the village; we haven’t decided whether it’s Italian at Villa or Japanese yet. Villa serves gluten free pizza crusts and breads!

I wanted to make us a little treat to enjoy after lunch but Kim is gluten intolerant so my options are somewhat limited; I follow Elana’s Pantry from Colorado, she has Celiac disease and therefore has dedicated her entire blog to Gluten Free. She has a lot of very tasty and unexpected treats. Like Elana, I refuse to make two dishes when Kim and Mike come over, so whatever we have that is gluten free needs to be tasty enough that we will ALL enjoy it! I came across this recipe quite some time ago and decided immediately that I want to make them: Espresso Fudge Brownies. Elana developed the recipe, and due to my inexperience with Gluten Free ingredients, I shall not alter it one bit. Please click here for the link to her blog.

OK, first things first. Meet Iona, she is my Mom’s mixer. My Mom’s mixer is likely older than I, and older than most of you, respected readers! I remember making all sorts of things with this mixer; the motor whining as it was stressed with the dough of cookies, breads or cakes! I’m actually quite surprised she still works — but they did make things to last, in those days! I am glad, though — she brings back a lot of great memories. Shout out to our neighbour Iona, I bet you never thought a mixer was named after you! 😉

This is my Mother's mixer, likely older than I (and out of respect, I won't say!)

The recipe was very easy to follow, and I had all the ingredients on hand (mind you, I did not need to be vegan, so I used standard non-vegan ingredients). Basically it was one bowl and a few utensils. I prepared the tin as suggested, easily poured the batter into the pan and put it in the oven for the 25-30 minutes. At 5 minutes I tested the centre with a cake tester and it came out clean. Done. Great. I let it sit for one hour before I tried to turn it out. See I FOLLOWED THE DIRECTIONS. I turned it out and , WHAM, the inner circle did not release and remained firmly positioned in the centre of the pan. UGH. I tried putting it back together but it looked like a dogs breakfast. What to do, what to do?

Below is the pan of brownies before the inner circle betrayed me. This is when I decided that Trifle was the only respectable thing to do! The deep rich chocolatey brownies, a hint of espresso, some strawberry preserves, a little freshly whipped cream. Yes, I think this could work.

Brownies in the pan (before they collapsed!)

This is the Trifle I threw together as a bit of a tester. We had tasters last night and they were deemed very yummy. Yes, even I tried some. Tomorrow I’ll have to run twice as long on the tread mill! Damn you, damn brownies!

English Trifle