Easiest Dark Chocolate Brownies - Easy Baking For Beginners

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Wish you a very happy new year! Hope this year brings some much needed harmony and peace to the world.  Progress, growth and everything else can come next.  Hope the worst is over and we get a better and safer world to live in.  Makes me think, it is now more important than ever to reinforce and instill values, tolerance, broad mindedness and humanity in our children.  And of course, live and love each day, count the blessings.  As these thoughts rule my mind today, I can't help but think how insignificant the next post or some bad pictures are while there are much bigger victories to be won!

Here are some easy, rich, creamy, moist and extremely chocolaty brownies with a truffle like texture.  This is no snack with a glass of milk nor are these for the faint hearted.  This is dessert best enjoyed with some coffee or orange whipped cream.  With barely any flour here, these brownies vaguely reminded me of the Chocolate Idiot Cake , only these are even more idiot proof!  Just the kind of thing you can throw together at the last minute for a weekend dessert or party.  This is the easiest recipe for chocolate brownies a beginner can attempt as there is no risk of scorching or seizing the chocolate.  Enough said,  why not let these be your first batch?  I promise, if you adore chocolate, you won't regret! 

If you are an absolute beginner, please do drop by here before you begin.

Helene's Brownies - Adapted from David Lebovitz. 

• 
  
• Ingredients : Please weigh all ingredients. 
• 
  
• Bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, coarsely chopped - 200 grams / 7 ounces 
• Water - 60 ml / 1/4 cup 
• Instant coffee - 1.5 teaspoons (optional, but recommended especially if  using local brands of chocolate)
• Soft unsalted butter, cut into small pieces - 115 grams / 4 oz
• Sugar, powdered - 150 grams  
• Flour/ Maida - 16 grams / 2 tablespoons
• Almond meal / ground almonds - 2 tablespoons 
• Eggs - 192 grams / 4 large
• Vanilla extract - 1 teaspoon
• 
  
• Method 
• 1. Preheat the oven to 180 C / 350ºF . Mise en place. 

• 2. Line an eight (8) inch square baking tin with baking parchment, leave an overhang.  (David uses a 9'' round spring form tin) 

3. Take the chocolate, water, coffee and butter in a heavy medium-sized saucepan. Put it on low heat (on your gas stove is fine), stir constantly till the chocolate is melted and smooth. 

4. Remove from heat and gently whisk in the sugar.  Then the vanilla, almond flour and the flour.

5. Whisk in the eggs in 4 additions, making sure the egg is well combined each time. Remember you want to be gentle here, whisk just enough to combine. There is no need to work up a volume. The batter will be quite thin, almost pourable.

6 . Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 18 - 20 minutes, until the center feels just about set. (this was at 20 minutes for me) . You won't see any wet batter on top and a toothpick inserted in the center must come out with a few moist crumbs attached to it. Let the pan remain in the oven as your check for doneness. Bake a minute or two more if the center looks wet.  The baking time depends on the pan size and your oven too. Err on the side of underbaked a little if you want a creamy center. 

5. Let cool completely, lift the brownies out of the tin (parchment and all) and cut into squares. 

Serve as is at room temperature or with a dollop of whipped cream. I liked these best the day I baked them. They turn more fudgy the next day, more like biting into a creamy bar of rich, buttery chocolate. 

Please Note :
Baking time : This probably will be the only slight glitch if you are a beginner.  As mentioned above, err on the side of under baking (by two minutes at the most), it may be gooey, but still good! Do note down the baking time so that you can adjust by a minute or two next time. 

David's note on Storage: The brownies can be frozen for up to two months, if well wrapped. Because they are quite moist, they’re somewhat fragile so pack them carefully if you freeze them.  If frozen, I would  prefer to simply bring them to room temperature rather than heating them in the microwave. 

I have not added nuts or chocolate chips as I wanted the texture smooth. Do add some if you wish.

Please do not go by the color you see in the pictures here, I am just plain terrible at taking pictures of anything chocolate. If you do try these, please take a moment to tell me how you liked them! 

Milk Chocolate Brownies

Milk chocolate brownies??!! Did I hear you say that? Promise I won't be surprised or take offense that you frowned at these! That's the expected reaction from dark chocolate loving palates. No, I haven't shifted loyalties to milk chocolate, though Cadbury and Campco will always hold a special place in my heart.

Nostalgia! It was a special treat back then, when dark chocolate had not made an appearance yet, at least where we lived. It made the perfect dessert for my school picnics and other smaller special occasions. I remember eating just one piece of  my Cadbury bar at a time or it would get over too soon!  And the time we had forgotten a couple of bars near the window in summer to find that the chocolate had completely melted. Had cried as we could not eat the chocolate, though no amount of admonishing could stop us from licking the chocolate!

Though dark chocolate remains my guilty pleasure, I do enjoy stealing a bite of milk chocolate now and then. A little sweet, but still good! I had a couple of bars of milk chocolate a friend had given. I  did not really know what to do with them, and then I remembered these brownies on Deeba's blog. I had the perfect excuse to bake these for the kids to take on a holiday. A good make-ahead dessert on the move!

These brownies are very rich, chocolaty, fudgy and yes, just a tiny bit on the sweeter side.  Just the thing for your little ones this Valentine's Day? Or simply as a break from the usual dark chocolate brownies to bring back some childhood memories ?

Adapted from Passionate About Baking, the recipe here.  These are from the book 'Baking With Friends' by Kathleen Kings, owner of Tate's Bakeshop, New York. Recipe on the site here.

Ingredients:

• Unsalted butter, cubed, soft - 113 grams / 1/2 cup
• Milk chocolate - finely chopped, 250 grams / 9oz
• Sugar - 85 grams / scant 1/2 cup (weigh and powder fine unless using caster sugar)
  
• Eggs -  96 grams / 2 large, room temperature
• Pure vanilla extract - 1 tsp
• Plain flour - 98 grams / 3/4 cup
• Cocoa powder  - 1 tbsp - 5 grams (just measure with your measuring spoon)
• pinch salt

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180C / 350 F. Mise en place. Line and lightly grease a 9'' square tin with aluminum foil or baking parchment  leaving an overhang. You could use an 8'' tin for taller brownies, but you baking time will be a few minutes more.
   
2. Sift the flour and cocoa. Keep aside.
3. In a medium sized heavy saucepan, melt butter and chocolate gently over low heat (on your stove-top) until just melted says the original recipe. Stir gently to mix evenly, then leave to cool slightly. Please read note. Scrape the mixture into a medium sized bowl.
4. Add the sugar, gently whisk to incorporate. Whisk in the eggs and vanilla gently. Add the flour mixture and stir in till well incorporated. Spread evenly into the prepared tin. 
5. Bake for about 15 -16 minutes or till the center is very slightly gooey when a toothpick is inserted in the center. ( I like them this way!) Do not over-bake, err on the side of under baking rather than over baking them.
6. Leave tin on cooling rack to cool completely. 
7. Gently lift the brownies from the pan (along with the foil) and cut into 16 squares.
8. Store airtight to retain the moisture in the brownies. I loved them fresh and warm from the tin! These tasted best the day they were baked, though they still remain moist and good later.

    
         Please note :

• Make sure your chocolate is chopped fine. If the chocolate is not properly and completely melted, your brownies will not have a good texture. Given that milk chocolate is more sensitive, it can be tricky.
• I was a little apprehensive about melting milk chocolate along with the butter. I have melted the butter (on the stove top) till it almost melted, took off the heat, added the chocolate and stirred . With heart in my mouth, very briefly put back on very low heat  as the chocolate did not seem to start melting fast enough.  Later I had to press my spatula here and there to melt some pieces, but all was still well in the end. Could have done a better job,  try your preferred method of melting chocolate, a double boiler may be the safest bet. Tell me how you did this if you try these.
  

• I may try substituting a tablespoon of the flour with cocoa to cut down on the sweetness, but the amount of sugar will be the same. Add some toasted walnuts or almonds to the batter if you like.
• Too much of heating of butter may make your brownies greasy. 
• Goes without saying that good quality milk chocolate will give you better tasting brownies. 

Make these once for a change and don't shy away from admitting that you did enjoy milk chocolate brownies!

Super Easy & Quick Nutella Brownies - For World Nutella Day!

Just in time for World Nutella Day, whew! Determined to put up a post this year, I had made a mental note of the date. But as happens often with me, I thought that 5th is another day away! I realization about the confusion coming after I spent half my 'me -time' yesterday sent me into panic! Thankfully, I had baked Abby Dodge's famous little brownie bites last week, but was not sure about the pictures I had taken. More of a norm than not, I had to again rush bake, take pictures and put them away before the daughter alighted from her bus. Helped that these can actually be put together by the time your microwave pre-heats ( i.e, in about 2-3 minutes!) and get baked in about 12 minutes!

Maybe Abby Dodge had harassed mothers and mothers with one eye fixed on the clock like me in mind when she created this recipe! Also patient, indulgent godmothers and grandmothers who love Sunday noon bake-play sessions. Yes, if you have not come across this recipe earlier, that's what this recipe is - child's play! The kind of recipe you may choose for your child to bake with her friends. Or may be bake them yourself for your Valentine if you are just about to start learning your way with butter, sugar and flour.
 

A whisk, a bowl, a spoon and a mini scoop is all you need to bake these brownies. As easy as simply mixing together Nutella, egg, flour and vanilla...that is it! Feel free to add some coffee, toasted chopped nuts or some chopped dark chocolate. And you would have baked the easiest, quickest brownies. A tad chewy, quite tasty and fudgy baked from scratch in about 20 (OK, lets make that 25, we are talking about kids and beginners)  minutes in all! These rich little things are better  baked as little bites in a mini muffin pan or the tiniest cake liners you may have. I prefer adding chopped hazelnuts or almonds to the batter as the chocolate chips may divert the taste from the nutty, chocolaty-enough taste of Nutella to more towards tasting very chocolaty... take your pick! Or you could use just the first 4 ingredients and bake. After all the simplicity and ease of the recipe is the best part about it!

Use the smallest whisk (not a fork) you have especially if making half the recipe. The seemingly so little bit of batter is quite thick and viscous, using a regular sized whisk may get most of it clinging to the whisk. A one tablespoon cookie scoop is best suited to scoop out the batter into the liners says Abby. If you don't have one, use 2 small spoons.

Easy Nutella Brownies - from here
Here’s what you’ll need:

• Nutella spread - 1/2 cup (I had earlier tried this recipe with another brand of chocolate hazelnut spread and it just did not work. So Nutella it has to be! )
• Egg - 1 large / 48 grams
• All purpose flour / maida -  40 grams / 5 tablespoons
• Toasted chopped hazelnuts /almonds/walnuts - 1/4 cup (recommended!) or 1/4 cup chocolate chips
• Vanilla extract - 1/4 teaspoon
• Instant coffee - 1/4 teaspoon (optional)

Procedure
1. Heat the oven to 180 degrees C/  350°F. Line a 12-cup mini muffin pan with paper or foil liners.
2. Put the Nutella, egg, coffee and vanilla in a medium bowl and whisk until smooth and well blended. Add the flour and whisk until blended. Fold in the nuts or chocolate chips if using.
3. Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin tin (about 3/4 full).
4. Bake for about 10-12 minutes or more depending on the size of the muffin pan or liners. A tooth pick inserted will come out with wet, gooey crumbs and the surface begins to crack . Do not over-bake or they will be dry-ish (but still tasty). Set on a rack to cool completely. Serve at room temperature. I have used slightly bigger cupcake liners and baked them for a little longer, about 15 minutes.

The texture of these brownies is not exactly the same as regular brownies, but they will surely satisfy your chocolate cravings. The taste apart, this recipe had to be on my blog as one of the most ridiculously simple recipes I have come across and tried with success. This recipe will thrill the newbie baker and kids alike - so bring on the beginners, the kids and the lazy foodies - this one is for you!

Almond Brownies

“Other things are just food. But chocolate’s chocolate.”

 Patrick Skene Catling

''Amma, will you teach me how to bake when I grow up?''
''Of course! What will you learn to bake first?''
''Brownies!''
''Yumm! And I will be following you all around the place, pestering you for some endlessly''.
''But I will take just one photo and give you the brownies.''

Words like this make you feel funny inside and make you almost handover the brownies all-poised over the plate. Well, almost! :)

Between everyday chores and cooking, several shopping trips with sis-in-law, juggling to reach home by the time kids come home (one at lunch time and one late afternoon) its hardly been the most conducive of times for baking and blogging. But bake I must, some bit at least or how will I sleep? I want to feed decent grub to the visiting family, scratch the urge to bake and Jeez I have a blog to feed too! Hubby's 14-year-old niece (a budding food stylist, avid Food Network viewer ) often browses my baking books. Oohs and aahs and 'could we please try this?' punctuate her browsing. She is a firm believer of there can never be too much of chocolate, so chocolate it has been of late!

Our rushed outings make it difficult for me to bake things in the morning, specially those which need to be photographed as soon as they are made. Having 3 little chocolate monsters around, brownies are an easy way out. Bake late in the evening (with a foreword / warning to the kids that I can't cut them immediately) refrigerate the brownies overnight for neat cuts, photograph in the morning. And who says you can't have dessert after breakfast once in a while? So it was time to bake the long-ago bookmarked and a score times drooled over Hazelnut Brownies from Cenk's beautiful blog. Loads of chocolate, hazelnuts, some ground and some chopped ,in a dense brownie, Cenk describes them as biting into your favorite chocolate - Ferraro Rocher? Yumm! Brownie goodness can't get better! Moist, rich, very chocolaty and nutty, these were yumm!!!

Things don't always go as planned, I had no time for pictures the next day. I could of course not deny the waiting kids their brownie pleasure. The day next finally saw me taking pictures of the remaining brownies hidden away, while it rained just long enough to make the all daylight disappear. While I complained about the cloudy weather and mentioned that I had to redo the baking and taking pictures on a couple of occasions, hubby's niece grinned and said 'You could bake these again, I wouldn't really mind eating them'   Neither would I!

Adapted from here. I have used almonds in place of the hazelnuts and thrown in a bit of coffee...

Ingredients

• Bittersweet chocolate, chopped - 280 grams (try this)
• Unsalted butter, very soft - 113 grams 
• Sugar - 200 grams / 1 cup (read note)
• Almonds / hazelnuts, toasted - 150 plus 75 grams (try this)
• Eggs - 3, large / 150 grams 
• Vanilla extract - 1 teaspoon ( use pure always)
• All-purpose flour - 32 grams / 1/4 cup
• Instant coffee - 1 1/2 teaspoons

Method : 

1. Preheat your oven to 180 degrees C / 350F . Line bottom and sides of a 9-inch square pan with parchment paper and set aside. Mise en place. 
2. Toast the almonds till fragrant, cool. Chop roughly 75 grams of almonds and keep aside. 
3. Place the remaining 150 grams almonds in a plastic bag and bash with a rolling pin till its chopped into small bits. This helps grind the almonds faster and avoid over-processing. In the smallest jar of your mixer, using about a tablespoon of flour for each batch, grind the bashed almonds in 3 batches in short spurts (about 30-60 seconds). The nuts may not be completely fine, but I do not grind too much as the nuts may release oil. Once all the nuts are ground, mix the entire flour-nut mixture and coffee well. Keep aside. 
4. Melt butter and chocolate in the microwave or over a bowl over simmering water and let cool for 5 minutes or till its at almost room temperature. Check (my video below) for an easy way to melt chocolate over the stove-top!
5. Add sugar and whisk until combined. Add the eggs, one at a time, and whisk until combined. Stir in the vanilla extract.
6.  Fold in the flour and nut mixture into the batter. Fold in roughly chopped almonds or hazelnuts into the batter. Pour the mixture into the prepared pan, smooth the top with a spatula and bake for 30-35 minutes or till a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with gooey crumbs (not wet batter) clinging to it . Do not overbake, that is extremely extremely important.
7. Let cool to room temperature. Cut into 3 inch squares. Store airtight, wrapped in clingfilm individually. 

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Easy method to melt chocolate on the stove, no double boiler necessary!

How to grind almonds or any other nuts

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New Bittersweet Brownies - We Turn Two!

Whoa! Have we already turned 2? Yes, my virtual baby celebrates its 2nd birthday today! I really, really do owe you a lot for helping me complete 2 full years. Clichéd  as it may sound, comments and mails from readers are one of the biggest highs in the life of a blogger. My sincere thanks to you for giving me these highs and always inspiring me to do better. A big heartfelt thank you!

While on this, I must admit, the blog has really, really grown on me. If you blog too, then you know it becomes so much a part of you. Blogging can almost be described as a life altering phenomenon.
Food, which was only fun and interest hitherto, becomes something you are really really serious about! The blog which starts out as a way to share your baking adventures, becomes almost an obsession. The little bit of baking you were earlier doing, now becomes something you have to do on an almost everyday basis or at least move in the direction of doing something. The little list of want-to-try bakes grows a mile longer. Baking for fun, becomes a serious ever growing passion. On a lighter note, by way of introduction, you may tend to say, 'Hey, this is me, I write a baking blog'. Things like, you kind of get irked not seeing 'blogger' as one of the tick options for occupation in forms :).


The little but indispensable fuel food blogging needs is a bit of appreciation from readers, a few satisfied ummms, a few plates licked clean. The 'it worked for me' mails and comments, which cheer you no end, add to the fire of passion!
 

 
Blogging and baking get to you, rule your mind. When you want to take your mind off things, the best stress buster you know - cook or bake something! Again, baking something good or not-so-good makes or spoils your day. You either are grinning from ear-to-ear like the proverbial cat who got the cream - successful recipe and decent pictures ! Or snap at folk around you and be a pain (or shall we make it less of a joy?) when you are not-so-successful with a recipe, compounded by barely there pictures. Happens to me and quite often :(. How about you?

And sometimes, you want to write something nice, but of course its just the perfect time for the writers block to make its appearance! You have something in mind for a particular post and you just-miss the mark, at more than a couple of attempts. You start all over again. The economy thrives, you buy more butter, more flour, more eggs ( poultry flourishes because of us!). You give away all the fruits..err breads, cakes, puffs of your labor to everybody you can think of, there isn't anyone spared. But you are still quite not there! So what you do you do? Now with very little time left for that post, you silence that persistent voice in the head to bake something you have not baked yet, something impressive. And stick to something seriously safe but still very good, like brownies...Moist, rich, the texture between fudge and mousse, very chocolaty brownies which are a chocolate lover's delight.

These are again from Alice Medrich's Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy Melt-In-The-Mouth Cookies.

In the book, Alice says, when chocolate is melted and used in cookies and brownies the cacao percentage is really important for the right texture and moistness. But when you are using them as chips or chunks in the batter, you can use chocolate with any percentage of cacao. (Cacao percentage is the total of cocoa solids, cocoa butter, chocolate liquor in the chocolate) Meaning chocolate with higher cacao percentage, will be darker and have a more assertive, more intense chocolate flavor, less sugar and less milk solids, hence less sweet. She says success rates are higher when the chocolate with the specified cacao percentage mentioned in the recipe is used. I find premium quality chocolate prohibitively expensive, hence I have used the brand of dark compound chocolate I normally use. This may have resulted in a slightly different texture than intended, but it was nevertheless very very tasty.


Alice describes the texture of these brownies as between a very moist cake and rich chocolate mousse. One of the secrets is whipping the eggs with some salt.

Ingredients:
Bittersweet chocolate, chopped (70% cacao) - 224 grams / 8 oz
Unsalted butter, cut into pieces - 6 tablespoons - 85 grams approximately
Eggs - 3
Sugar - 7 oz / 1 cup ( Reduce sugar to 150 grams / 3/4 cup if using normal dark chocolate like Morde)
Salt - Scant ( slightly less than) 1/4 teaspoon
Pure vanilla extract - 1 teaspoon
All purpose flour - 1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon / 1.75 oz/ 49 grams approx

Procedure: Grease and line an 8'' square tin with baking parchment or aluminum foil. You need to line all the four sides, this will help lift the brownies out easily and cut them.

Pre heat oven to 180 degrees C / 350 degrees F. Position a rack in the lower third of the oven. Mise en place.

Melt the chocolate and butter in the microwave or in a bowl set over barely simmering water. (I use the microwave for this). When the chocolate is melted, set aside. Take the eggs, sugar, salt and vanilla in a medium sized bowl. Beat with a hand mixer on high speed till the eggs are thick and light colored, about 2 minutes. Whisk the warm chocolate into the egg mixture. Fold in the flour. Scrape the batter into the pan and spread evenly. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out free of gooey batter. A few moist crumbs is fine. Do not over bake or your brownies will not be as moist. Mine took about 32 minutes.

Cool the brownies in the pan over a cooling rack. Lift the brownies out using the edges of the foil or parchment. Cut into squares.

I cut the brownies soon as they cooled. It did not give me very neat squares, but very very nice ones, with a lovely texture. I would suggest you do not put them in the refrigerator for better squares (as I did!) as it will not be as gooey. Cut them as is once they cool,  eat at least some them right away! I put a part of the brownies in the fridge as I wanted better cuts for the pictures! Though these looked neater when cut, they lost the gooey appearance (as my pictures show, please don't go by the pictures to decide the texture). The ones which remained outside the fridge taste better than the ones refrigerated.

My brownies rose and then deflated a bit in the oven. The last moment post sent me into a frenzy, making me forget to reduce the sugar, probably over whip a bit, I did not line the tin neatly so the batter oozed out from the gaps, parchment stuck to the pan - Jeez! The works! In spite of all these, the brownies are really yumm, very certainly a keeper of a recipe! You bet I will be making these again!



Before I end the post, I would like to say, all the effort, the time, the joys and the frustration is all worth the while as there isn't a chance I would swap baking and blogging for any hobby in the world. Its isn't easy, but its infinitely rewarding . And with readers like you, inspiring comments like yours make it even more so.

Thanks again, hope to see you around and hear from you soon...

These brownies are my last entry to my event Cakes And More Cookie Fest . One lucky person will get a copy of Alice Medrich's Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy Melt-In-The-Mouth Cookies. Hope you have sent all your cookies to me! If you haven't yet, am still waiting!

Best Cocoa Brownies

          Nine out of ten people like chocolate. The tenth person always lies -- John Q. Tullius

This being the contingent truth, some of us favor cocoa and some of us chocolate. I belong to the latter category. I adore chocolate and all things baked with it. Bakes with melted chocolate get me to the kitchen faster than those with cocoa .Give me a recipe which has both and I will have one foot in the kitchen even before I bookmark it . Though I like cocoa and make sure I have some in the fridge at all times, my loyalties lie towards chocolate. A box of chopped dark chocolate is a must in my kitchen for all those times when I have to bake something chocolate and fast .So when I come across recipes which have both the words 'best' and 'cocoa' in them, I am tempted to try. Will this make a convert of me? Having discovered my love for dense, fudgy brownies (cakey brownies are just not my thing, well, cakey brownies are CAKES, why call them brownies??!!), I succumb to the temptation to bake some Best Cocoa Brownies. Little room for doubt when the recipe is by Alice Medrich and baked by one of my fav bloggers, Deb( who else?) of Smitten Kitchen.

Reading her post, I nod my head as I am certainly one of those folks who sincerely believe that  'all roads to fudgy, dark and rich brownies must be paved with bricks of tempered chocolate' Count me in please! But then she says, this brownie will make these folks eat humble pie...oh sorry, brownie and then make converts out of them - from 'Only chocolate for me' to ' Wow Cocoa, you have me sold!' or something to that effect. These brownies are rich, fudgy, very chocolaty and truly good.

Adapted from Alice Medrich’s Bittersweet.  You can find Deb's recipe here

Ingredients: 
Unsalted butter, chopped - 141 grams / 10 tablespoons/ 1 1/4 sticks/ 5 ounces
Sugar - 280 grams /1 1/4 cups / 9 7/8 ounces ( I have measured 1 1/4 in my cup)
Unsweetened Cocoa powder , natural or Dutch-process - 82 grams /  3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons / 2 7/8 ounces
Pure vanilla extract - 1/2 teaspoon
Cold Eggs - 2, large (refer note)
All-purpose flour - 66 grams / 1/2 cup / 2 3/8 ounces
Walnut or pecan pieces - 2/3 cup (optional, I did not use)
Salt - 1/4 teaspoon ( I omitted this)


Procedure : Preheat the oven to 160 degrees C / 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 (if using) in a medium sized microwave safe bowl and microwave on HIGH power for one minute, then 30 seconds each time, stirring in between ( Or place all of these in a 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 or microwave and set aside briefly until the mixture is only warm, not hot. It looks fairly gritty at this point, but don’t fret says Deb — it should smoothen out once the eggs and flour are added. Note: Mine was not completely smooth even after adding the eggs and flour. See the picture above.


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 a wooden spoon or a rubber spatula. I used a wooden spoon. This is some amount of effort as the batter will be quite thick, don't tell me I did not warn you! 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,  mine took about 40 minutes. As Alice suggests 20-25 minutes, safer to check at 20 minutes, bake longer if needed. Let cool completely on a rack. I left my pan on the rack for quite some time, then left it in the fridge, covered with clingfilm overnight. I was determined to get cleaner cuts this time, kids away helped!


Lift up the ends of the parchment or foil liner, and transfer the brownies to a cutting board. Cut into 16 or 25 squares. These are quite rich, my suggestion - make it 25 pieces.

Note : I am not sure if the mixture not being completely smooth (like Deb's) even after the addition of eggs and flour was in any way critical to the texture of the brownies. I was happy with mine. The top was not shiny either. I will next time use superfine sugar and see if there will be any notable difference.

Eggs : The eggs we get here weigh about 48 grams without shells which is the weight of large eggs without shells.


How we liked them : The Best Cocoa Brownies earned some brownie points in the eyes of a die-hard chocolate lover! To be baked again for sure!