Alton Brown Takes 36 Days to Make Pan of Brownies

Alton Brown, host of the Food Network’s Good Eats, recently completed taping of an episode in which he takes 36 days to make a pan of brownies.

The brownies, named “Alton Brown(ies) Brownies,” by the host, currently reside uneaten in a square 8-inch pan in his studio kitchen.

The brownie journey began on June 3, when Brown opened his show with a monologue that offered disdain for brownies made from pre-packaged mixes.  Brown said to the camera, “Sure, you can eat brownies from a mix … but, well, why do that when you can make your own mix?”  The host then dramatically exploded several dozen boxes of Betty Crocker brownie mix.

After the opening of the show, Brown told his audience that the most important part of a good brownie batter is the cocoa.

“There are lots of run-of-the-mill cocoas available at your local grocer,” Brown said while wandering the aisles of what appeared to be a Whole Foods market.  “Hershey’s, Ghirardelli and others will suit you just fine.  But for our purposes, we’ll be using Criollo cocoa, which is found in Venezuela.”

Brown then left the market, entered his car and drove nine hours to Naples, Fla., where he climbed aboard a small sloop and set sail for the coast of Venezuela.  During the five-day trip, Brown subsisted on a tuna fish he caught off the cost of Cuba and smoked in a cardboard box aboard his boat.

“You can do this while you’re on your trip to Venezuela,” he said. “Tuna is great, but mackerel, bonito or, really,  any other member of the Scombridae family should suit you just fine.”

Upon arrival in the western part of Venezuela, Brown docked his boat and ambled up a hill where he found a large cocoa tree.  After fashioning his own picking basket from hemp and thin strips of driftwood found on the beach, Brown picked approximately three pounds of Criollo cocoa beans.

After returning to his boat, Brown began sailing back to the United States while preparing the beans to become cocoa for his brownies.

“You’ll want to cover the cocoa beans with banana leaves here so they ferment properly,” he said.  “You’ll want to leave them under the leaves for, oh, say, 3-4 days. Turn once every day to ensure an even fermentation process.”

Several days later, back on the coast of Florida, Brown lugged his now-fermented cocoa beans onto the beach to prepare them to dry.

“When cocoa beans are picked, they still retain too much water to be usable,” said Brown, as he sprawled out on a large, garishly-colored beach chair.  “So we want to set them in the sun so that moisture can evaporate out of the bean.  Now we’ll just wait a little while and let them dry out.”  The host then donned a large pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses, leaned back in his chair and folded his hands behind his head.  A mustachioed Hispanic man suddenly appeared and offered Brown what appeared to be a frozen margarita.

Brown was next seen in his kitchen, where he had spread the beans across his countertop.  After he ground them into cocoa powder — on the 19th day of the brownie-making process — he said that no good brownie recipe is complete without the proper butter.

“We’ll use about eight ounces, by weight, of butter for this recipe,” he said, turning his head sideways and positioning his face extremely close to the camera.  “You could use any ol’ type of store-bought butter, or even margarine, but I prefer to churn my own butter, right here in my kitchen.”

Brown then proceeded to explain the process for churning one’s own butter.  Thirty-six hours later, after a rigorous 19-step process, Brown had the required eight ounces of butter for the recipe.

Following several other tasks that included a trip to Hawaii to harvest sugarcane and the purchase of a hen in order to have four fresh eggs to include in his batter, Brown blended the ingredients together.

“Now that we have the batter, preheat your ovens to 375 degrees Fahrenheit, then butter and flour your pan,” he said. “For me, I prefer this 8-inch square pan that I welded in my garage this morning.”

After the brownies baked for 45 minutes — bringing the total project time to 36 days, 4 hours and 17 minutes — Brown removed the pan from the oven.

“To check and see if the brownies are done, simply insert this toothpick into the center of the pan.  If it comes out clean, that means you’re done.  Set them on a cooling rack, like so, and wait for them to cool before cutting.”

He added, “Be careful; if you don’t wait until they’re cool before you cut them, you’ll ruin everything and have to start all over.”

Brown is currently filming a new show that will help viewers learn how to make a mushroom pilaf in just under two weeks.

Tags: alton brown, food network