Chocolate Corks and Bouchon Pans

I've been sick, since Friday. Not deathly ill, but enough to be semi-miserable. I jinxed myself. All of the fam has been sick for weeks, one after another. As each person came down with whatever mysterious cold/flu/infection they each had, I marveled at my awesome immune system.

"I can't believe I'm not sick, being around all these sick people," I thought. Well, apparently, my immune system, is slightly less than awesome, and I finally came down with a quite offensive cold.

On Saturday, Oscar took Sabrina to the movies, and then brought her home so he could do some man errands (ie:get a haircut, buy insoles for his shoes etc). By the time he made it back to the good ole casa, it was almost 9:00PM, and I was ready to keel over.

He excitedly announced that he had bought me a Pre-Valentines Day gift. Despite my poor frame of mind, and cold medicine induced fog, I was intrigued. I'm always down for a good present. He handed me a Williams-Sonoma bag. I'm always down with Williams-Sonoma too. With an anxious smile, he waited as I took out the gift he'd lovingly chosen for me. Inside the bag, was a Silicon Bouchon Pan, and a sugar shaker. I love to bake, but had no clue what a bouchon was. To boot, on the back of the box, was a recipe for Chocolate Corks (which at the time sounded slightly inappropriate to me, who knows why...). Oscar suggested I make the Corks right then. I suggested we wait until, I didn't feel like coughing up a lung. He agreed.

Last night, while watching 24, Oscar reminded me about my promise to bake the Chocolate Corks. Since I felt heaps better, I set about this task with good intentions, but low expectations. Any recipe with the word "cork" in it, sounds slightly dodgy to me. I also Googled the word "Bouchon", and found out it's French for none other than.....cork. Brilliant.

The Bouchon pan is interesting. The wells for the bouchons are tiny. I mean, really small. I followed the directions on the back of the box, filled the pan, and popped them into the oven. The baking time, was twenty-one minutes, according to the box. Fifteen minutes to cool on the wire rack in the pan, and another thirty minutes cooling, on the wire rack, out of the pan. I thought that sounded like too much effort for such a tiny baked good, but it was too late to turn back. I was committed to the Corks for the long haul.

I watched, I waited. The timer beeped, and I took them out of the oven. I followed the cooling instructions. I attempted to remove them from the pan. They did not budge. Hmmm, I checked the box to see if I was supposed to have greased the pan beforehand...nope. OK. I grabbed a butter knife in another attempt to spring them loose. I turned the pan upside down. Still, no budge. After about five minutes of trying to extract them, one popped out. Or should I say, half of one popped out. They were not cool enough...still....even after forty-five minutes of cooling. So, I waited some more.

Oscar was on the second installment of 24 by this time.
"Hey honey, are the Corks done yet?" No answer from me.

Another fifteen minutes went by. I went in for the final cork extraction, and only managed to get like three or four intact corks. The rest were missing bottoms, or tops. I grabbed a napkin, plopped down on the couch next to Oscar, and handed him one of the non-decapitated Corks.

"Mmm, he said, tastes just like a brownie."
My sentiments exactly.

Lesson learned:
Next time, just spread the batter into a brownie pan, and call it a night.