AstroFest and Créme de Menthe Brownies

WOW it's been a while. Hopefully now that the academic year has started up again, I'll start posting more regular updates. And I'll  try to go back and maybe describe the rest of my big trip and some other exciting things from this summer. I've been quite busy, and the summer tends to be a bit unstructured, and while this may imply more free time, it also means I tend to let things go at the same time. But I've been quite busy, cooking fun things, not to mention other summer plans (like a trip to Ocean City Maryland and eating lots and lots of crab plus plenty of time on the beach), so I have plenty of new content, if I just write it up. So now that the academic year is back in the swing of things, my move to a regular and structured schedule should return. I'll aim for an update approximately two times per month, probably with a few extra updates in the next two weeks catching up with my life until now, starting with some recent events and a recipe for my delicious créme de menthe brownies!

One recent event was my department's annual "AstroFest." Every year, everyone in the department gets together and each person gives a four minute talk (plus one minute, for questions) on their research or some related or interesting aspect of astronomy (in theory - in practice not everyone signs up each year and we have some outside folks as well, though graduate students are required strongly encouraged to present). This lets us all be social with each other, remind ourselves what everyone else is doing and how their research is coming, familiarize ourselves with cool topics in modern astronomy, plus get a pretty decent breakfast, lunch, and dinner on the department. Plus, coffee. Lots and lots of coffee. We're talking 60+ talks starting at 9am and going on 'til 5pm, albeit with breaks for coffee, lunch, and breathing space. A really fun event, though it can also be overwhelming.

I myself gave a talk on the same object I presented in South Africa - now with a few more data points, but compressed to 1/4 of the time to present. So I basically gave an overview of the theory driving our observations and showed a few pretty plots demonstrating why it's interesting. I left off by tossing the subject to the speaker after me - another graduate student who is also looking at the same object - with more of a focus on modeling - who has been working with my advisor and me for the past year. So I also provided her talk with a bit of background, while showing off my pretty, pretty data, and having the benefit of not having to cover EVERYTHING about this object in four minutes. Which would be, frankly, impossible. I'm currently working on the paper for this object, and the roughest of rough drafts, without figures, citations, or finalized data (plus a conclusion section which is simply bullet points at the moment) is already three pages of very small type print. So it worked out quite well, we even practiced together a bit beforehand to make sure we flowed well, topic wise, and that I could set up her talk decently. We got a fair number of complements on our joint talks, in fact!

After AstroFest is the all important AstroFEAST: where (after hitting a bar for an hour and a half first) we head over to one of the professors apartments and just eat, drink, and be merry. It's always a very nice time, this year with loads of Indian food, some of which is even now in my freezer (there was so much left over, the hostess insisted we take food home, and I found myself with a huge tray of lamb curry). Other highlights of the evening include an entire table covered in different sorts of ice cream, playing some cat's cradle and hand games with other graduate students (including teaching another grad student how to play "cups"), discussions of Doctor Who, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Game of Thrones, Wheel of Time and other geek favorites, random musings about science, and general revelry.

After all that astronomy and festivities, one might ask how I work a recipe into the blog post. While I'm certainly not above simply sticking in a recipe at the end, it is somewhat related. FOr the breaks between talks at AstroFest, graduate students are also required encouraged to bring in an afternoon snack. So this year hailed the return of my much beloved recipe of créme de menthe brownies, which my family has been making since I was but a wee barne. Créme de menthe brownies: a delightful mix of rich chocolate and mintiness in three delicious layers.We generally only made these about once a year at home, mainly because they have many separate steps which need to be spread out during the day (or, in a crunch, an evening). So they take a while. However, each individual step is pretty straightforwards - it's just that each layer needs to bake/cool/chill/set before you can start the next one.

These are made with creme de menthe liqueur, but if you are not a fan of mint youc an substitute other flavourings. I have some friends who always make these brownies with Kahlua instead of creme de menthe for the middle layers. While these are also delicious, I'm partial to the brownies of my childhood which were always, ALWAYS mint. Nostalgia dictates. This recipe also requires almost three full sticks of butter, so it's not for the faint of heart!

Crème de Menthe Brownies (in 3 layers)

Layer 1:

1 c. sugar

4 eggs

16 oz Hershey’s syrup

1 c. flour

1/2 c. butter (melted) – 1 stick

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder

Preheat oven to 350°F

Mix all ingredients and bake in an ungreased, unfloured 9x13 baking pan for 30 minutes. Let cool COMPLETELY before starting the next layer.

Layer 2:

2 cups powdered (10X) sugar

½ c. butter (1 stick)

4 tbs crème de menthe

Mix ingredients thoroughly, spread over layer #1 and chill – let solidify before starting last layer. This will take at least an hour.

Layer 3:

6 tbs butter

1 cup chocolate chips

(Actually, you can also use a full 1/2 c. butter and 1-1/3 c. of chocolate chips for a thicker layer. I sometimes do this if I'm feeling particularly decadant. Or if I just don't want to have those 2 tbs of butter left from the stick. Whatever.)

Melt butter in saucepan, add chocolate chips and stir on low heat until melted. Spread on layer #2, chill for 30-45 minutes and then cut into squares. If you chill longer, when you cut them the 3^rd layer will crack when you cut them. But if you are just going to let these sit out at room temperature a while before you cut them, the cracks aren't a huge problem. But you DO want to chill them for a while to make sure the top layer sets! These also freeze well, for long term storage!

All in all, delicious. Three layers of delicious.

So until next time, and with much hope for more frequent updates, enjoy!