Brownie Taste Test

This week both cooks needed plenty of chocolate and by wonderful coincidence this amazing brownie recipe was posted on smittenkichen.com! We both tried it out and loved it...here are the results:

Cook 1

Having a perfect brownie recipe is a bit like being in love - your belief in the beloved is so strong that you are blind to all others who flit by. When you have The Recipe, you have no inclination to try any others, even if they are touted as 'the best'! And to taste a bite of those sad specimens on black plastic trays that grace every office luncheon would be a waste of calories on what you know to be an inferior version of your recipe; a brown hockey puck sodden with the salty juices of the neighboring turkey sandwich. For a while your recipe is the only one worth baking - it's trust-worthy and well received when it accompanies you to all your dinner parties, dressed in the same crumpled tin foil coat time after time after time...And so you stray.

 And friends, I strayed. I cheated on my perfect brownie recipe for the one I'm about to share with you. I feel so cheap! Was it worth it, you ask? No. My stand-by recipe is still better and it will keep its spot as my #1. But this recipe has plenty of virtues.
It was incredibly easy and quick to make, mimicking the same steps as a box mix, but with a more intense cocoa flavor and a texture so gooey that it must be eaten straight from the pan as you'll be too frustrated to cut squares out of it. So give it a try this Valentine's Day and don't say I didn't warn you about affairs of the heart, eh, stomach.

Cook 2

The last time I made brownies from scratch I ended up with a dry, dense brick with an oily layer on top, so I was a bit hesitant to try this recipe.  But Deb made it sound so easy and the pictures looked so amazing that I thought I'd give it a shot.  It was actually really easy and didn't take very long at all.  The most time-consuming part was heating the chocolate/sugar/butter mixture...I kept stirring and stirring and it took at least 15 minutes before it was actually hot.  It was really grainy looking at this point but once the eggs and flour were added it got smooth and shiny very quickly (although it was so dense I wasn't really able to stir "vigorously" as suggested).

 My baking time varied greatly from the original recipe as well.  I kept adding time so am not entirely sure how long it took but I would guess 30-35 minutes (at 325).  The end result was amazing: so much fudgier and chewier than any mix brownie I've ever had.  We usually go through a pan of brownies at an alarming speed but these are so rich and dense that 3 days later we still have about a third of them left...but not for long!

Best Cocoa Brownies Adapted from Alice Menderich's Bittersweet via smittenkitchen 10 tablespoons (1 1/4 sticks, 5 ounces or 141 grams) unsalted butter 1 1/4 cups (9 7/8 ounces, 280 grams) sugar 3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons (2 7/8 ounces, 82 grams) unsweetened cocoa powder (natural or Dutch-process) 1/4 teaspoon salt (or a heaping 1/4 teaspoon flaky salt, as I used) 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract 2 large eggs, cold 1/2 cup (66 grams, 2 3/8 ounces) all-purpose flour 2/3 cup walnut or pecan pieces (optional) Position a rack in the lower third of the oven and preheat the oven to 325°F. Line the bottom and sides of an 8×8-inch square baking pan with parchment paper or foil, leaving an overhang on two opposite sides. Combine the butter, sugar, cocoa, and salt in a medium heatproof bowl and set the bowl in a wide skillet of barely simmering water. Stir from time to time until the butter is melted and the mixture is smooth and hot enough that you want to remove your finger fairly quickly after dipping it in to test. Remove the bowl from the skillet and set aside briefly until the mixture is only warm, not hot. It looks fairly gritty at this point, but don’t fret — it smooths out once the eggs and flour are added.

Stir in the vanilla with a wooden spoon. Add the eggs one at a time, stirring vigorously after each one. When the batter looks thick, shiny, and well blended, add the flour and stir until you cannot see it any longer, then beat vigorously for 40 strokes with the wooden spoon or a rubber spatula. Stir in the nuts, if using. Spread evenly in the lined pan.

Bake until a toothpick plunged into the center emerges slightly moist with batter, 20 to 25 minutes is Medrich’s suggestion but it took me at least 10 minutes longer to get them set. Let cool completely on a rack.

Lift up the ends of the parchment or foil liner, and transfer the brownies to a cutting board. Cut into 16 or 25 squares.