Recipe: Tetris Brownies

I worked at one of my current places of employment for more than half a year without ever speaking to anyone but my boss, largely because I was terrified of approaching my colleagues and initiating conversation. I couldn’t even bring myself to say hello to them, through fear that I would tangle my words and start speaking in a crazy southern dialect of broken Chinese.

At some point, I decided that I had to stop being such a social retard and start being a normal person by talking to people. So I came up with a reason to make contact. I decided to bake.

I started with simply things, like cupcakes from a box and scones. Then, I figured that if I was going to be baking for a bunch of gamers (which I was), I might as well have some fun with it! So here is a step-by-step recipe for Tetris Chocolate Brownies, the same brownies that recently won me some friends at work. They’re easy to make (even easier than the Triforce shortbread cookies that I made for Eegra!), and if you’re demented enough to screw up the recipe, then you don’t deserve to have friends.

Right, so let’s start this shit up, foolz!

Foods you’ll need to make delicious Tetris Chocolate Brownies:

150g of butter (I think you can use margarine instead, but I haven’t tried it. Just use butter.)

1 cup of baking cocoa (Or any kind of powdered cocoa will do. Please note this is not the same as Nesquik. DON’T USE NESQUIK.)

4 chicken eggs

2 cups of sugar (I used caster sugar because it was all I had. You can use the normal stuff if you like.)

1 tsp of vanilla essence (Interchangeable with vanilla extract, I think.)

½ cup of self-raising flour (I used wholemeal flour. I know it’s a pretentious thing to do, but I like my fibre, okay?)

¼ cup of almond meal (if you can’t be arsed to buy almond meal, just use more self-raising flour. I’m convinced that almond meal makes the brownies taste better, but if you’re lazy then it doesn’t really matter.)

Tools you will need:

A big bowl to mix stuff in

A big spoon for mixing stuff

A baking tray. The tray can be any shape, but it’s just easier to cut Tetris shapes if it’s square/rectangular-ish.

Baking paper (optional: this just stops it from sticking to the tray, and it means less washing up!)

A star to light up your life

STEP 1: DO THINGS WITH THE BUTTER

The first thing you need to do is melt the butter. Some recipes will tell you to do this over ‘a boiler’, which basically involves putting the butter in a bowl, putting the bowl over a saucepan filled with water, and putting the saucepan on the stove. Waste of time, I says! Just use a microwave. But before you microwave, cut the block of butter into smaller cubes, otherwise it won’t melt properly and the butter will burn.

Chop, chop, chop!

Into heating machine! Heat it for around 43 seconds, or until you start hearing explosions. No, really. When you hear explosions, the butter is definitely ready.

Hey look, now your butter is all melted! It probably would have been a good idea to cover it with cling wrap to stop the butter from splattering everywhere when it exploded, but hey – we don’t live in a perfect world. Some people are fat. We just deal with it and move on, right? Right. As you can see, there’s still a small bit of butter in a semi-solid state, but the rest of it is melted enough for us to use. So let’s power on!

STEP 2: ADD STUFFS TO THE BUTTERS

Toss in the cocoa. I put in a bit more than the recommended one cup; I’m all about living dangerously and taking risks. So if you want to use a bit more cocoa, then who’s gonna stop you? Yeah? YEAH!

Mix, mix, mix! Your mixture will become very dark. Don’t panic! This is normal. Here, let me hold your hand. We’ll do this together.

STEP 3: EGGS, PLEASE!

It’s time to add the eggs! But first, make sure you’ve allowed the buttery cocoa mix to cool for a bit. If you add the eggs while the butter is still very warm, then the mixture might cook the eggs. That would be gross. So wait about 5-10 minutes. Go play a quick game of Tetris while you wait.

I usually crack each egg into a separate bowl and then add them into the mix one at a time. This might seem like a superfluous step, but daytime cooking shows have taught me well! You see, sometimes you’ll get an egg that’s completely fucked up, for whatever reason. If you crack that egg straight into your cocoa/butter mix then you’ve effectively ruined everything! Also, some people have retard egg-cracking skills and get bits of shell into the mix. Do whatever works for you.

Once all the eggs are in, mix, mix, mix! Okay, so it looks pretty gross. But fear not! It will look delicious, soon.

STEP 4: I CAN HAS SUGAR?

Add all the sugar and the vanilla essence!

I know this looks like a lot of sugar. That’s because it is a lot of sugar. But what fun are brownies if you’re not risking a heart attack every time you sink your teeth into the sugary goodness of baked treats? If you’re worried about sugar levels, you can cut back to 1.5 cups and it won’t make that big a difference. I mean, your brownies won’t be as fun and you probably won’t make as many (or any) friends, but if that’s a sacrifice you’re willing to make for your health, then I’m happy to let you go through life, alone. Crying.

STEP 5: FLOUR AND NUT FLOUR

Stir it all up and add the flour. If you just want to use self-raising flour, then use ¾ cups. If you’re a fancy pants like me and want to include almond meal, then reduce the amount of flour you have and substitute it with almond meal.

Stir, stir, stir!

This is what the texture should look like:

STEP 6: PREPARE IT FOR THE BAKING TIME!

Line a baking tray with a sheet of baking paper, like so. Feel rejuvenated, because you are in the presence of a sparkling star.

Pour your mixture onto the baking paper.

Spread the mixture out. It doesn’t matter if the surface isn’t perfectly smooth – it’ll flatten itself out when it bakes.

In the recipe that I tried to follow, it didn’t specify a baking time. It just said “bake until firm”. Wow, talk about being vague. Bake until firm? Firm like what? A tree? My buns? A block of cheese? I baked the brownies for 50 minutes on 160 degrees celsius, but that was a bit too long. The edges went all crunchy, which I think was a bad thing. So I would recommend baking for 40-45 minutes in 160 degrees celsius, or until they’re as firm as Chun Li’s thighs.

Here they are!

Not bad, for a mixture that started out looking like mud!

STEP 7: CHOPPING TIME

Now that you have a slab of chocolate brownie, there are a number of things you can do with it. You can be a boring old bugger and cut it into plain rectangles. Or, you can be rad and turn it into a game of Tetris!

Start by cutting the edges off. These can be off-cuts that you can keep for yourself.

Then, cut the Tetris shapes into the brownies. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a Tetris cookie cutter. Nor could I be bothered to use some kind of grid to ensure that all my shapes were even. If you’re super keen, I suppose you could do markings on the brownie slab and make sure that every block is just the right size.

Once you’re done, you can arrange them into a game of Tetris, like so!

I realise that there are crumbs on the baking paper, but I think it adds character (read: I was too lazy to clean up). I also realise that they’re not all the same size; that’s because my game of Tetris is played on B-Side, which we all know has ‘special’ blocks. You’re probably also wondering why the whole block hasn’t disappeared yet, since some of the brownies do tessellate. Well, they will eventually disappear… IN YOUR STOMACH! LOLZ!

MAKES: 20 or so boring rectangular bars, or one very short game of Tetris.

If you’re interested in recipes like this, I have one for Triforce/Pac-men/Companion Cube shortbread cookies over at Eegra.com. Click here to go on an amazing baking adventure.