This PDF of the military's specification for oatmeal cookies and brownies, document MIL-C-44072C, [PDF] has been making the rounds on the internet lately, most recently on Metafilter.  Some people think it's a hoax, a hilarious send-up of the US Military's culture of bureaucracy.  But there are enough people vouching for its credentials that I'm willing to believe it's real.

More to the point, does it work?

After reading the spec, I decided that I absolutely had to try it for myself.  

First, I had to read through some definitions.  

The MILSPEC defines "Shortening" as "a refined, hydrogenated vegetable oil or combination of refined oils."  I only had olive oil on hand, so I used butter instead.  (Oh noes, my brownie is already non-compliant with the military's specifications!  ALERT THE AUTHORITIES.)  If you want to be official about it, use vegetable oil.

The document oddly does not define "dextrose, anhydrous" so I had to look that up online. From what I found, it seems that anhydrous dextrose is a dry, powdered form of corn syrup.  I decided to substitute sugar, since it seemed like pretty much the same thing.

"Chemical leavening" is also left vague.  "Leavening agents used in the commercial production of brownies" is not very helpful.  Considering how small my recipe was going to be, I decided to skip this.  I assume it's either baking powder or baking soda, but I'm not sure which.  And I've learned that you never want to use one when you should have used the other!

The limiting factor with my recipe is that I had only 9 grams of cocoa powder on hand.  Drat!  Luckily the recipe is given in ratios, which is the topic of much cook-type discussion these days.  (One author even wrote a whole book on ratio recipes!)  If you know the recipe's ratios, you can make it any size you want.  I decided to test this theory!

I have a very small, very precise, pocket-sized digital scale.  IT'S NOT WHAT YOU'RE THINKING.  I'm a knitter, and I bought it to measure out portions of yarn.  You'd be surprised how useful that can be, for a knitter.  Pinkie swear!  

I started by getting a ballpark number to use for factoring the weights.  The recipe calls for 5.5 parts cocoa powder.  After some guesswork, I found that 5.5 / .6 = 9.16, which was close enough for me.

Therefore, to get the amount of each ingredient in grams, I divided its number by .6.  For example, the formula specifies 23 parts sugar.  23 / .6 = 38, so that's 38 grams of sugar.  And so forth.

The recipe is fairly straightforward.  It wasn't terribly easy to mix with a fork, as the batter is quite firm.  If you were making more than about a half cup of batter, I would definitely recommend using a stand mixer.

I baked my solitary little brownie in a greased muffin cup for about 30 minutes.  It turned out pretty tasty!  It is out of compliance in several aspects (it is not enrobed with chocolate, nor is it the correct size and shape).  But it is quite tasty for all that!