CLPowersWife

Scott recently informed me that, while he appreciates my efforts to create the Perfect Cookie, what he really wants me to bake is brownies. Good, rich, chocolatey brownies with that perfect glistening crust and gooey center. So... I got to work on it. Here's what I came up with:

Ultimate Homemade Brownies
by Adrienne Tomkins

1 cup (2 sticks) salted butter*
5 oz semi-sweet baking chocolate
1 3/4 c granulated sugar
1/2 c brown sugar (dark, preferably)
4 large eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
2/3 c flour
1/4 c cocoa powder

Melt chocolate and butter over low heat in a saucepan. Pour mixture over sugar and brown sugar into a bowl. Blend until smooth, then add eggs and vanilla together. Blend in flour and cocoa powder together. Do not overbeat. Pour into 11x13 pan greased with cooking spray and cook for 25-40 minutes, until set.

Step-by-step explanation:

Melt over very low heat in a saucepan on the stove. I like to put the butter in the pan first and let it melt a little bit before I put the chocolate in on top of the butter, so the chocolate doesn't burn. Or you can use my homemade double-boiler method (see the Fonduethread). This will take about 10 minutes total, so go ahead and prepare your dry ingredients, as long as you're careful to stir the chocolate/butter occasionally.

Place the sugar and brown sugar in a medium-sized mixing bowl, and once ready, pour your butter/chocolate mixture over top. Gently fold the sugars into the chocolates until well-blended.

Meanwhile, beat four eggs with 2 tsp vanilla in a small bowl until well blended, then pour this into the sugar/chocolate bowl. The trick is to get this mixed up really well without any visible air bubbles in the batter. If you have air bubbles, you've pretty much ruined it, so DO NOT BEAT TOO FAST OR HARD!!!

Once these ingredients are all mixed in together, sift 2/3 cup flour with 1/4 cup cocoa powder. The cocoa powder is optional but I think it adds that extra "kick" of chocolateyness to the brownies, so I always include it. Slowly add the flour/powder mixture to the existing batter, being careful not to overbeat. Do you catch a theme here? DO NOT OVERBEAT!!! A slow, gentle rotation of the spatula will eventually mix all ingredients together; you just have to be patient!

Finally, pour the entire mixture into an 11x13" brownie pan, lightly sprayed with Pam, and bake at 350 degrees for 25-40 minutes. It really depends on your oven and how well you've preheated it, to determine how long they should cook. Also, my oven sucks so I have to start checking my stuff about halfway into the baking time. It's *probably* closer to 35 minutes than 25, but you should play it safe the first time.

Brownies are done when a toothpick inserted into the center comes out with dry-ish crumbs stuck to it. If the toothpick is clean, they're probably overcooked, but you don't want liquid on your toothpick, either. Play it safe!





*Now, I know some of you, considering the source, are wondering if these are *special* brownies, and the answer is no. However, if you wanted to make special brownies with this recipe, simply use special butter instead of regular butter, and be sure to add 1/4 tsp salt and 1/4 cup of sugar to the recipe to help hide the... special.... flavor.

Secondly, you may notice that I highlighted "salted" butter and "semi-sweet" chocolate. You can use unsalted butter and/or unsweetened chocolate, but you'll need to alter the other ingredients to keep the flavors accurate. If you use unsalted butter, you'll need to add 1/4 tsp salt to the recipe (mix in with sugars), and if you use unsweetened sugar, add an additional 1/4 c granulated sugar, for a total of 2 cups granulated sugar.

Lastly, I highlighted "large" eggs, because some families prefer to purchase Jumbo or Extra Large eggs, etc. If you have these gargantuan eggs instead of Large, alter the recipe as follows: Extra Large=3 eggs, Jumbo=2 1/2 eggs. Since you beat these before adding them to the sugars, it's easiest to go ahead and beat 3 Jumbo eggs, then remove about 2 tbsp of egg from your bowl before adding the rest to the sugars.

Enjoy!

CLPowersWife

PS: The trick to cutting these after they're done is to use a plastic or silicon knife. Metal knives will stick to the gooeyness and they'll break up everywhere.

Also, let them cool until you can comfortably touch the pan, but not until the pan is actually cold, before cutting. You want them to still be warm, but NOT hot. Let them sit on the stove until they reach this temp, because they do continue to cook for a little bit once they're out of the oven, as long as you don't cut into them. If you think you overcooked your brownies, poke a couple of holes into the center of your pan as soon as you take them out of the oven and that will help them cool down faster and not continue baking.

pmptx

Great recipe and DIY.
I hate baking, but this looks worth it. The KitchenAid stand mixer and a few bowls on slow spped should make this somewhat easier.

soopa

Maybe Mandi will make these later

Whiskers

Where is the pot??

CLPowersWife

Watch out... I think Scott ate all but two of them last night in his sleep. "Wow, brownies good... me eat brownies!"



The alternative to this, of course, is to buy yourself a box of brownie mix, but I really enjoy baking and making my own recipes. This one came from a recipe I got off foodnetwork.com, but I altered it, doubling the chocolate, adding the cocoa powder, and substituting brown sugar for some of the white sugar they called for. I hate it when homemade brownies are pale in color; they need to be a good mahogany color for me to like them.

CLPowersWife

You didn't read the whole thread, did you? Toward the bottom I have a variation in case you want to include pot.

Whiskers

:squnt:

For no reason at reason at all, I need to say that a brownie has about 450 calories, while a chocolate cupcake has about 160.....

CLPowersWife

I have better things to do with my life than count calories.

I'd rather eat an entire plate of brownies than deny myself one of my greatest pleasures (baking, and eating the results), only to die eventually anyway.

I could probably be thinner, but I would be really, really mean.

Whiskers

Just sayin'

fdl

Like saki

fdl

My wife LOVES to bake. Beleive it or not, but I have to actually tell her to stop making stuff.

So yes I will be taste testing this recipe

CLPowersWife

Saki's not mean, she's feisty!

And Scott BEGS me not to bake stuff; especially because I have to test my recipes so often, so sometimes I'll make like 4 batches of one thing in a day, just trying to perfect the proportions.

Those peanut butter cookies (other thread, from yesterday) are to DIE FOR but it took SEVERAL weeks and probably 15 batches to get them exactly right. These brownies were easier; like I said, all I really did was alter the proportions of chocolate and sugar. The PB cookies required significant changing.