at the Water's Edge


Living life and learning all I can along the way!

Tetris Brownies


Tetriminios - Tetris Brownies
Here's my first attempt at Tetris shaped brownies!
I was charged with an interesting challenge tonight.  Tom somehow stumbled across this picture of brownies that were shaped like Tetris pieces (and appropriately colored/frosted), and asked if I would make him Tetris brownies.  Um, sure.  I mean, why not?  I didn't really have anything planned for tonight, so I decided to give it a go.  I looked up the original post from the picture he found to see if it had any instructions or helpful hints, and it did have a basic "how-to".  You can read that post here.


I decided I wanted to make the brownies from scratch.  Namely because I had finally found a good recipe for them a while back and haven't made them since.  After some searching, I dug up the recipe I had liked -- it's from Allrecipes.com and you can view it here.  They actually come out as real brownies -- not too cake-y and not too fudge-y.  Just right.

Tetris colored frosting
Anyways, I took a hint from the how-to guide and decided to bake the brownies in a 9x13 pan rather than the 8x8 that the recipe calls for.  The thinner brownies make for easier cutting.  While the brownies were cooking/cooling, I colored the frosting.  I ended up just using a can of vanilla frosting from the store.  I put a scoop of it into seven different bowls for the seven colors I would need.  I had to decide which version of Tetris I would base my tetriminos (Tetris pieces) off of, since the colors vary.  I ended up going with the "Tetris Company"/"Tetris Party" colors (thank you for the easy display of options, Wikipedia), and I'm glad I did because I think it was the easiest color scheme to make.  I bought a multi-pack of food coloring that came with red, blue, yellow, and green (apparently people have a hard time making green??).  Most of the colors were pretty straightforward.  The only one that was a bit tricky was cyan.  I didn't want it to end up just a lighter version of blue, so I did a few drops of blue and one drop of green to give it a little more of that aqua look.

homemade brownies in a panOnce the brownies had cooled (or at least had cooled enough for me to handle), I cut out my pieces.  Now, I am not good at cutting brownies in to squares, so this was a bit of a challenge for me.  I'm also visually-spatially  challenged, meaning I couldn't just figure out what pieces to cut as I went.  So I made a sort of grid on the rectangle of brownies by lightly scratching the surface with a toothpick.  Once all of the squares were visible, I could more easily figure out how to cut the shapes.  I did one of each of the seven shapes first, just to be sure I got them all.  Then I just did whatever seemed to fit best for the remainder.  I used an extra sharp knife to cut them, and a small spatula to pry them out (also, be sure to grease the bottom of the pan really well before baking; this helped a lot).  Some of my pieces did fall apart a bit, but fortunately frosting doubles as a good glue!

Tetris tetriminos - made of frosted browniesOnce I had the pieces laid out on a platter, I referenced my cheat sheet and frosted each piece accordingly.  I used the edge of my spatula to make the lines separating the individual "blocks" within each tetrimino.  Overall, it was a fun challenge and the brownies turned out pretty good!  The shapes were not perfect, but not bad considering my skill level - ha!  

However, now I'm in the mood to play Tetris...who wants to play Tetris Party with me??  Be warned: I totally dominated last time we played with my extended family :)


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ABOUTME

Hi there! My name is Dana and I live in West Michigan with my husband, Tom and our dog Copernicus. I created this space as a place to share the things I learn along this journey I call life. I work in marketing and I'm a sort of Jane of All Trades, interested in all things nature, gardening, cooking, exploring and learning new things. This blog is a conglomeration of my interests, hobbies, life and life lessons. Thanks for stopping by!

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