Chocolate Brownies

Is there really a perfect Brownie? I mean is there really a perfect version of anything? Sure there is- but I think this comes with a condition. What I like, you may not and vice versa. So I am not keen calling anything perfect. I do however think that if any recipe is called perfect, it  should work just the way it says it should every single time (but this should probably be true for most recipes no?)

Perfectionism aside, have you eaten a brownie that's not perfect? In any form?

 
 
Brownies fall into three distinct camps. Cakey, Chewy, Fudgy. I don't know what a chewy brownie would be. You decide which one you like more. I am not sure how a brownie is made chewy. I prefer fudgy brownies to the others only because I don't really know what a 'cakey' brownie really is. Wouldn't it just be 'cake'?  I didn't know for a long time that the crust on top - that's actually a part of the brownie - and for me now an essential distinguishing character. Shirley O. Corriher in her book Bakewise goes into great detail about why the crust is formed. The crust is a layer of meringue and occurs as a result of beating the eggs in the chocolate butter sugar mixture. The more you beat the eggs, the better crust you'll get.


I have this thing of not adding any nuts to brownies. I know its classic, traditional and all that, but for some reason I prefer to have that one smooth bite of a fudgy rich brownie (also, a confession: I save time on chopping the nuts).


Brownie Points on Saveur - Head over there to read an indepth history of Brownies.

Chocolate Brownies
Adapted from David Lebovitz's The Great Book of Chocolate and Katharine Hepburn's Brownies

You need -

115 gms butter
115 gms bittersweet chocolate.
150 gms powdered or caster sugar
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
50 gms all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup chopped walnuts, pecans (optional)

To make the Brownies -

1. Preheat the oven to 150 degree C. Grease and dust an 8 inch square cake pan.


2.  In a medium sized saucepan, melt together butter and chocolate over low heat. Stop once the chocolate has softened and butter completely melted. In the melted butter-chocolate mixture, whisk in the sugar, eggs and vanilla, and beat the mixture well.



3. Sift in the flour and salt. The walnuts, pecans go in here according to the original recipe, if you do choose to add them.



4. Bake the brownies for about 40 minutes until they form a crust on top and appear quite set. It's better to check often - to avoid overbaking them.

 

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