How to make brownies in France

You would think baking and cooking in France would be a wonderful experience full of adventure and different tastes and textures and trust me, when what you're making turns out the way you want, it is.

I started out with an extremely basic brownie recipe: . 

2 sticks butter (or 1 stick plus 1/2 c. Crisco)
2 c. sugar
4 eggs
1 1/2 c. flour
4 tbsp. cocoa
1 tbsp. vanilla or almond extract

Set oven at 350 degrees and grease a 9x13 inch pan. Blend butter and sugar; add eggs one at a time and blend. Stir flour and cocoa and add to above mixture. Add vanilla or almond extract. Pour into greased pan and bake 20 minutes. This is light cake type brownie--center should be moist.

But, French ingredients are very different from their American counterparts. The flour is a lot lighter, the butter a lot softer (better in my opinion). And depending on what is in your kitchen, you may have to substitute somethings and/or improvise others. One thing to keep in mind is that you HAVE to convert the temperature to Celsius and if you have an oven like mine, which doesn't have temperature markings but gas markings instead, you'll need to figure out what each mark means on your own. I found this temperature conversion site that is helpful but not exact. It makes a good guide for beginners, but it is probably better to get to know your oven. For example this recipe calls for 350 degrees Farenheit so I turned my oven on to the 4 mark. That actually worked well for me. But when I checked the brownies after the 20 minutes called for by the recipe, they were still runny in the middle. I ended up leaving them in for about 35-40 minutes which is what most brownie recipes require anyways and they turned out just like the recipe says-- cake-like and very moist. The recipe also called for nuts but I don't like nuts that much. I still wanted a little texture so I took two chocolate bars, one milk chocolate and one cacao and broke them up in to small pieces and mixed it in the batter. They're not quite Ghiradelli Costco mix brownies, but they are still good and I'm sure the kids will love them. If you're feeling lazy, they do have  prêt à cuire or ready to make brownie mixes at Carrefour