Vegan middle brother and baker little sis just decided to have a brownie bake-off. This involved two days of gathering supplies, trash-talking, and then baking.

Little sis felt she was at a disadvantage once we all sat down to sample the results today because his had just come out of the oven and were still warm, while hers had been cooling on a plate all night. But then we found out that a key ingredient of his recipe was beets.

His brownies were very fluffy, more dry and cocoa-y than truly sweet, and crowned with pecans he harvested from some tree near his house. Her brownies were apparently made with a base of store-bought cake mix and Kraft caramels. Both involved chocolate chips.

Despite the fact that she had accidentally baked a long hair from her head into the brownie that I ate from her pan ("The secret ingredient is...me!"), I'd still give her the edge, just because hers were chocolatey-sweet and gooey, like a brownie should be. And didn't contain beets.