Barely-passible Aid Station Cooking: Super-moist Sous-vide'd Wilford Brimley Special Non-Medicinal Brownies

do you find you sometimes need a boost of energy but caffeine is too much of a diuretic for your stomach?
do you like to pretend your aid station in the middle of bumfuck nowhere is basically the house of the witch from hansel and gretel?


Welcome back to Barely-passible Aid Station Cooking, a segment born out of my propensity to work aid stations as a means of keeping my training regime balanced.  The recipes I share here have worked for me and racers in the past and I hope they can help you too, whether at an aid station or just for general everyday snacking.  

A few reminders:

• Everything tastes better when you're exhausted, which means these recipes will not get you any Michelin stars.  They have been tested among racers and colleagues but obviously the sample size is limited and potentially affected by altitude and temperature as well (especially because I sous vide everything). 
• These recipes are designed for calorie replenishment.  So hopefully you're not here because you're trying to lose weight.  
• I am not a cook or baker.  I have a day job and all this shit is voluntary for reasons soon to become apparent.  

Context

Every year I work an aid station at Sinister 7 that is the intersection of two different legs, solely because it's a fucking circus and I like herding pandas.  Sinister 7 holds a special place in my heart too, namely that it is where I popped my 100mi cherry (yes there could have been easier races to do but i digress).  

For this race, I decided to make some of my sugarbomb brownies that are so high in sugar content I generally recommend to people to maybe try half of it first before finishing the other half.  My reasons for this was as follows:

• As much as it looks like helping runners is my jam, it's only because I hate babysitting dropped runners.  Alas I needed something that would get runners the fuck out of my aid station.
• It's going to be single digit weather overnight so I needed something that wouldn't dry out quickly.  

Things you'll need

• sous vide circulator/Instant Pot with an Ultra mode (I use the latter since it's close enough)
• whatever you need to do the brownie fudge.  get brownie mix, make it from scratch like I did, I don't give a fuck.  
• 5-6 8oz canning jars and lids
• a baking oven
• girl guide cookies.  it's different here in Canada but I roll with the Spring Classic chocolate/vanillas.  
• unsalted butter or oil for greasing up said jars
• oreo wafers (i.e. the non-cremed side)

Steps

1. Make the brownie fudge.  For large orders like this, I'll deviate to store brand brownie mix, but if i'm just trolling people at the end of a run, I'll defer to Kathy Hepburn's secret sauce sans walnuts and pecans.
   
2. transfer the fudge into 8oz canning jars, sides oiled/buttered with unsalted butter, but do not fill them past the 1/2 mark.  depending on how much flour you use, it may not expand as much as dough does so you could get away with filling them up to 2/3 but i for one do not enjoy jars blowing up in my Instant Pot.  
3. seal the jars with only your thumb and forefinger.  we want some moisture slipping through but not a torrent.
   
4. wipe the outside of the jars clean and place the jars in the water bath.  run it at 3H at 195F.
   
5. smoke em if you got em.
6. promptly remove all jars at the end of the cycle.  carefully open a jar, it should look like the pyroclastic remnants of chili night at my house.  transfer this into a baking cup with a spoon; fill it halfway before planting a cookie smack dab into the middle of the cup.  continue filling but not all the way as the fudge has a tendency to expand in the oven.
   
7. crumble two oreo wafers on the top of the brownie and press down gently to ensure all pieces are somehow attached to the fudge.
   
8. repeat for the rest of your jars.  YMMV depending on your oven but i find that preheating for 350F at two jars left to process usually works for perfect timing.
9. bake for 22 minutes.  
10. remove and let it cool completely (30-45 minutes).
    

Stray observations:

• Lori and I have yet to find out the duration at which these things go moldy.  
• instead of using oreo wafers, I have also applied a cream cheese topping with half a cookie planted on top after baking.  tastes just as ridiculous.  
• where could i find oreo wafers, might you ask?  oh, i don't know.
• if you are baking a smaller size than whatever this is, please note that i have yet to figure out a suitable baking time for a mini-cupcake sized version of this because the browning reaction happens way too quickly.  i would suggest bringing down the temperature to 300-325 depending on your pan stickiness and/or even 5-10 minutes of baking but I would not know.