The Hogar has been given the opportunity to be the sole provider of snacks/food at a National Cheerleading Competition that is going to be held this Saturday. For this to happen and for them to make any sort of profit at the event, they were going to need a lot of donations of food...and I mean, a lot. They are expecting over 2000 attendees at this all day event. I responded right away and said I would be happy to provide the 200 brownies they would need. Finally - something I could do and it was right up my alley - baking! Piece of cake (or brownie as it may be).
First things first. I needed to find a recipe that was quick, easy and which had ingredients I could readily find here in Chile. The first two were easy - the third, a bit harder. Most of them called for Cocoa powder. Nothing doing. Some called for brown sugar. Again - no go. And some wanted Chocolate Chips. Those you can find but they are really small bags that go for the equivalent of about $4 a bag. I would have had to spend about $75 on chips alone. Uh, nope. Finally, I came upon the perfect recipe. It was so simple and only had 4 ingredients: Chocolate instant pudding, Chocolate cake mix, milk and nuts (if you want, I chose not to since I don't know who has allergies). So I was down to 3 ingredients. How much easier can you get?
Off to Jumbo I go, list in hand lest I forget something. I know there are only 3 ingredients, but with 200 brownies to bake, you want to make sure you have it all the first time. I went straight to the cake mixes. As I made Stinkerbell's birthday cake just a couple of months ago, I knew right where to look. They they were, stacked right next the to imported Betty Crocker mixes, which I certainly wasn't going to use, as much as I would have liked to. Betty just makes a great chocolate cake. I just couldn't afford her this time. I picked up almost all of their boxes of chocolate cake mix and went to get my 12 pack of milk. I wasn't going to need more than 4 or 5, but milk is sold in 12 packs cheaper than it is sold individually. And since the milk here is sold unrefrigerated, I knew it wouldn't go bad if I bought extra.
Now, I was in search of the one ingredient I just wasn't as sure about - the instant chocolate pudding. Instant anything is almost impossible to find here (but that is a whole other post). In the postres aisle (desserts) I found pudding, but not instant. I tried to ask for instant but he kept staring at me like I was a bit deranged and kept pointing to what was in front of me. Ok - this was close enough! The boxes leapt into my cart and I was good to go.
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| This is what it looks like to make 200 brownies. And this isn't all of it... There are 2 cake boxes and some chocolate chips missing (I broke down and bought just a few) |
The baking wasn't so bad. I had to tweak the recipe a bit since the pudding box was twice as big as the one in the states. When I was done with the fiddling - I realized it was 1 1/2 cake mixes, 1 box of pudding and 2 cups of milk. This made the most brownie like texture that I got out of all of my batches. And if you really want to know, I made 11 pans of brownies...in my toaster oven. Again, appliances here is another post I am working on!
I hope they sell well for the girls on Saturday. I know they are excited to have been given this opportunity and they are so eager to do everything they can to keep their home. Literally. Casa Esperanza is in real need right now and is in danger of having to close their doors. They are not funded by the government like their sister house is, so they survive on the kindness of donations and whatever they can earn themselves. I am just glad I can help in some small way!
You were much more organized than I was! I'm so happy you created this post since it was virtually the same as my experience, only different ingredients. Love you!
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