Of Brownies, Lemon Bars, and Exploding Rolls...

Tanya and I have had a few baking nights together, but none of them stands out more than the one we had last week. Tanya was charged with bringing treats to her work for the weekly Friday treat day. She had talked to me about it during the day, and we decided to make a trip together to Harmons to gather ingredients and, more importantly, decide upon what she was going to bake.

For my part, I should never really be left alone in grocery stores, and especially not at night, and not when I am hungry. Fatigue and hunger can be a distracting, if not sometimes dangerous combination. Tanya had a rather ingenious idea, she was going to make a cookie crust and then fill it with brownies and put Andies Mints on top to finish it off. Let me digress to discuss the brilliance of this culinary mélange for a moment. I love pie, I love cookies, and I love brownies. Now if you have a cookie crust, and fill it with brownie, and then put Andies on top, you have the recipe for one of the greatest triple wonders of the modern age.

Unfortunately it was getting rather late, so for the sake of time we opted for Betty Crocker Brownie mix. While we were in the aisle I discovered a lemon bar mix and promptly gave in to the temptation, so we bought them as well. As we made our way to the candy aisle to pick up the Andies, we passed the pre-made Pillsbury rolls in a tube section. Tanya loves the flaky rolls, so we got them too. We joked about a story we had discussed the week before when making another batch of Pillsbury Crescent Rolls:

There was an elderly woman who had been seen sitting in her car for several hours with her hands on the back of her head in the parking lot of a grocery store. She refused to move, and when approached immediately asked that both the police and an ambulance be called stating that she had been shot in the back of the head and was holding her brains in and could not move or else she would die. When the emergency services arrived they carefully inspected the back of her head. Much to their surprise they found that it was covered in Pillsbury Crescent Roll dough. She had bought a package of rolls, and placed them in her trunk, the heat of the sun made the dough expand and the container burst – with a sound very similar to a gun shot. The woman felt something hit the back of her head, reached around and felt the soft gooey dough; mistaking it for her own brains. She understandably thought that she had just been shot and had waited there for several hours until she could get someone’s attention. We both had a good chuckle over this story.

We made it to the candy aisle and were greeted by a jolly old man who was obviously buying candy for the grand-kiddies. He made a few comments about chocolate, and did a slight dance with the aide of his shopping cart on his way to select a bag of candy. We got the Andies and proceeded to checkout.

We went back to Tanya’s parent’s place and started our baking extravaganza. The brownies went in first. The brownies we had decided on were the type that come wrapped in plastic and that you squeeze out onto you baking dish. This being accomplished we both took a moment to appreciate it’s resemblance to a rather large doggy movement before proceeding to spread it out. I mixed up the lemon bars, Tanya put the brownies in to bake and we sat down to wait. The brownies came out soft and rather delicious looking; we promptly put the lemon bars in and waited for the brownies to cool. The lemon bars baked rather quickly, we let them cool and then I dug in. I swear these lemon bars were nothing but crystallized sugar with lemon on top; I had an immediate sugar rush followed shortly there after by an intense sugar crash.

It was about 1 AM as we sat down to eat the lemon bars. Suddenly there was a loud bang and the Pillsbury roll container flew off of the table, into the air, across the room, and onto the dining room floor. Rather taken aback Tanya and I just stared at each other, then we started to laugh. Just as the old lady, we had left our Pillsbury out, and the warmth from the kitchen had caused it to expand, and then explode. Surveying the roll carnage, we started to pick up the remnants of dough and salvage that which we could. We decided we had better bake them as well. When all said and done we ended up with a tray of brownies, a nice smattering of lemon bars, and batch of rolls, minus one or two that were casualties of the unexpected airborne expansion.