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While this blog was never intended to be a baking blog, it seems my posts have reflected my sweet tooth. I promise to get back to posting about comfort foods soon enough, but when I made these brownies for a recent football tailgate, I knew I had to share these first. Even though the football game was a disaster, these brownies made up for the loss.
Brownies were one of the first things I can remember baking as a young kid – not from scratch, but from a box mix. I thought I was a baking genius for adding cinnamon to spice them up. They became my “go to” dessert for every occasion. While I admit that I would never turn down a brownie, box mix included, thankfully my baking repertoire and skills have increased since those early days.*
These brownies are without a doubt the best brownies I have ever devoured tasted. The dense, fudgy texture melts into your mouth and explodes with decadent dark chocolate goodness. The deliciousness of these brownies is directly related to the quality of the chocolate, so use the best quality you can find, and try not to eat all of the chocolate before you put it in the mix. I use Ghirardelli 70% dark chocolate and Bensdorp Dutch-process cocoa powder from King Arthur Flour.
1 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons dark unsweetened cocoa powder
11 ounces dark chocolate, coarsely chopped
8 ounces unsalted butter cut into 1-inch pieces, plus more to butter the pan
1 teaspoon instant espresso powder
1 ½ cups granulated sugar
½ cup packed light brown sugar
5 eggs, at room temperature
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Heavily butter the bottom and sides of a 9x13 glass baking pan.
2) Wisk flour, salt, and cocoa powder together in a medium bowl.
3) Put the chocolate, butter, and espresso powder in a large bowl over a saucepan of simmering water (I use the bowl to my stand mixer), and stir occasionally until the chocolate and butter are completely melted and smooth.
4) Once melted, turn off the heat and add the sugars, keeping the bowl over the simmering water. Whisk until completely combined, and then remove the bowl from the heat.
5) Add 3 eggs to the chocolate mixture and whisk until combined. Add the remaining eggs and vanilla and whisk until combined. Do not overbeat batter at this stage or your brownies will have a cake-like texture.
6) Sprinkle the flour mixture over the chocolate batter. Using a rubber spatula (not your whisk), fold the flour mixture into the chocolate until just a bit of flour is visible.
7) Pour batter into buttered pan and smooth the top. Bake for 30 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through the baking time, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out with only a few moist crumbs.
8) Let the brownies cool completely before cutting with a plastic knife.
*I still like to add cinnamon to my brownies, about 1/8 teaspoon in this recipe. Like Elle Woods’ scented pink resume, “it gives it a little something extra, don’t you think?”
