Chocolate Square Splat

Sometimes, things don't always work out as anticipated, baking and cooking included. I do publish mistakes on my blog, because I believe both I and my readers learn from them and benefit from reading about them. Also, most of my mistakes have still been perfectly edible - just maybe not perfectly presentable or exactly what I had in mind. I won't say when this mistake is from, who it was intended for, or whose fault it really was, because there is no point in laying blame. But I will briefly explain what happened.

This is a standard chocolate square recipe that has been made before. It consists of a chocolate crust par-baked and then topped with a coconut filling and a chocolate frosting once cool. In lieu of a chocolate frosting, this version contains semisweet chocolate chips in the coconut filling. The crust seemed to work out fine. But for some reason, the filling rose up really high when baked and began to spill over the sides of the pan. Even though it was that high and had been in the oven for its required amount of time, the filling was still very liquidy and the squares didn't seem set at all. They were taken out of the oven however, because the edges seemed very dark and the crust would become overcooked. At first I thought the addition of (perhaps too many) chocolate chips had made the filling more liquidiy and set off the balance or affected how it baked. It was later discovered that one teaspoon of baking soda was used accidentally instead of one teaspoon of baking powder.

When hot, the squares were a mess and difficult to judge. But once they cooled, they did set up and there was nothing wrong with the taste of them. They were still a little messy and quite difficult to cut, but the taste was absolutely fine. The soda for powder switch didn't affect that, and the squares were extra chocolaty and delicious. Just not the prettiest to look at.