HOWTO Make Tetris brownies

Fraske Design's got a great, simple tutorial for making your own Tetris brownies for hours of fun and pounds of flab:

Since I made these brownies thinner than normal, I also cut down the baking time. The baking process would have normally taken around 30 minutes, but this batch only took 10. I just kept an eye on the pan and took it out when it looked about right. The trick is to not let them bake too long.
Next, while the brownies were cooling, I mixed up my tetris color frostings into seven separate bowls. It turns out that Tetris colors have varied over the years, so I settled on matching the colors to the tetrads in the Free Tetris game online. My colors included yellow, orange, red, magenta, cyan, blue, and green. I achieved these colors mixing white vanilla frosting and food coloring accordingly.

How to Make Tetris Brownies (or Tetris Cookies) (via Craft)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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OM

…Brownies are one thing. but what about cookie cutters? Those would have been more of a given!
Gnomon

I was hoping for quite a bit more from the original article. It’s trivially easy to split up a bunch of brownies into tetrads; far more interesting is the problem of determining the optimal packing of pieces that can fit into standard-sized baking pans.

The problem is one of determining a packing of tetrads which closely approaches a normal statistical distribution[1] and still fills the pan to the edges (since baking non-rectangular brownie shapes is, um, challenging). There’s some interesting work to be done there, I think (ref. “Tetris is Hard, Even to Approximate” (Erik D. Demaine, Susan Hohenberger, David Liben-Nowell; arXiv:cs/0210020v1 ; http://arxiv.org/abs/cs.CC/0210020).

[1]: even though those damned square blocks seem to come up at the worst possible time[2]… damn it!

[2]: http://fph.altervista.org/prog/bastet.shtml
sonny p fontaine

brownies…
FrankenPengie

The “toothpick test for doneness” has given way to “took it out when it looked about right” and calling 911 for directions on making Tetris brownies.
aislefive

@Waterlillygirl – now that’s a fresh cake!
Waterlilygirl

Aislefive, I’m agreeing with you.. those brownies look like crap.

Now I may not be an “Ace Of Cakes” but here’s a Pac Man cake I made for an ex about 5 years ago… the trick to smothing out the frosting is the heat the knife.

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c386/waterlilygirl/1.jpg
joeyjoseph

With all the legal jazz the Tetris folk throw at people, I’m surprised you of all people Cory didn’t give us a heads up on the strong possibility of the Russian mob throwing strange bricks through our windows!
worthawholebean

WTF. The T-shaped ones are definitely supposed to be purple.
buddy66

Anybody who would put icing on a brownie would put catsup on a hotdog.
anthony

Buddy are you from Tennessee or Chicago?
ding

C’mon now people, they’re brownies shaped like the world’s greatest game. No need to be cruel.
mmbb

I’ve never had frosting on a brownie before. Is this a regional thing?
Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Moderator

They’re brownies shaped like Lemmings? I don’t see the resemblance.
Waterlilygirl

Thanks Aislefive! :)
Cranky old woman

So, my question is, where is that free tetris on line game site? I can play whilst the brownies are cooking.

I live in a household with a six year old boy, the brownies are not gonna last long enough to cut into shapes and then be frosted.
asev

Thoughts before reading comments: Hooray! Brownies! Delicious!

Thoughts after reading comments:
C’mon, people, brownies! How can you say anything negative about brownies? Especially when they’re shaped like tetris pieces. Who cares if it’s easy to make.

It’s obviously posted more for the idea than for detailed instructions. -_-
aislefive

This post wouldn’t annoy me if they looked amazing. Or even pretty good. But they look really, really bad.

I’m guessing Cory feels obligated to post this because a fan submitted it.
mdh

There’s always room for just… one… more….

damn!
Elvis Pelt

Have we come to the point where we need a tutorial for this? Sorry for the, uh, “snark,” but….

Dang, it’s a pan of brownies with some colored frosting.
mrmuggles

I’ll make those lines disappear… Great idea for a “geek cake” :P
trimeta

@Elvis Pelt: You’re forgetting the complex step whereby you must draw a knife along the frosting to make the lines for the individual blocks. That’ll get you every time.

Yea, I agree, while this sort of activity should be encouraged, I’m not sure I see the need for a HOWTO on this topic. Maybe a photoset of various people enjoying them, but the instructions kind of write themselves.
FLG

1 – Make pan of brownies
2 – Cut into tetris shapes
3 – Frost shapes with different coloured frosting
4 – Make lines to denote blocks

Still, I can’t be mad at brownies…
EH

There’s a variation on strip poker somewhere in there.
mdh

I’ve never had frosting on a brownie before. Is this a regional thing?

In Soviet Russia, the brownies frost YOU.
Chas44

I’m gonna see those things falling to the bottom of the pan all night now…
Jon Adair

Klax brownies. Stack ‘em up and nom nom nom.
Biscuit4

looks more like tetris taffy
Biscuit4

if you’ve noticed the color variations in tetris you are over thinking
Keeper of the Lantern

Ugh. Tetris brownies. Disgusting.

Now Blokus brownies would be much better…