The finished product
After my run-in with the Failbread, and after a bad review from a snowbound Philadelphia friend, I was a little bit hesitant to embark on another experimental cooking project. But I had promised E, the tiny kitchen assistant, that there would be brownies, and I’m not the kind to go back on my word, especially when it involves baked goods.
I won’t reprint the recipe here. The Cook’s Illustrated issue is still on the newsstands, and I highly encourage you to buy it, both for the brownie recipe and the easy polenta recipe. In fact, if you ask me, you should subscribe. The explanations behind the recipes are nearly as valuable as the recipes themselves. Trust me on this.
After the eggs were added, it began to look like a lovely, glossy brownie batter
I’ll confess that I’ve never made brownies from scratch before. Box brownies are so easy that there isn’t any reason to go to the trouble, right? Well… sort of. I’ll admit that this isn’t the sort of recipe that I’d whip up for a random Tuesday night with the book club, but for a fun Sunday activity with E? Yeah, it’s worth it.
There is a lot of stirring in this recipe, which makes a tiny kitchen assistant very handy. The process starts out with dissolving Dutch-process cocoa in boiling water, then adding chopped unsweetened chocolate. It doesn’t seem like it should work. There’s more than one point in the whisking process where you’re certain that it won’t work and you’ll be left with a curdled-looking chocolatey mess. And yet suddenly it all comes together beautifully.
"I'm doing a great job whisking. I haven't even spilled any!"
To paraphrase Cook’s Illustrated, the reason why boxed brownies have their distinct and satisfying chewiness is because of the balance of fats. By combining eggs, egg yolks, butter, chocolate and oil in just the right combinations, you get the same fat ratio and texture. To boost the chocolate flavor, you can add chunks of chocolate into the batter, which doesn’t affect the fat ratio, but gives the warm brownies small oozing pockets of bittersweet chocolate. Mmmm.
My friend from Philadelphia said that her brownies repeatedly failed the toothpick test, causing her to leave them in for close to 30 extra minutes. Having had the same problem at the 35 minute mark, but a perfectly clean toothpick at 40 minutes, I can only assume that we weren’t hitting uncooked batter, but rather the aforementioned oozing chocolate pockets. If you’re trying this for the first time, use multiple toothpick pokes in different locations if your first stab comes out wet.
"You hafta use a spatula to get the white stuff off the sides."
The brownies have a good, rich, dark chocolate flavor, much more so than any brownie-in-a-box that I’ve ever tasted. Because they’re rich, they’re more of a “one and done” treat than an “eat the whole pan” brownie. They beg for milk, or possibly even a large dollop of vanilla ice cream.
Results: A big thumbs-up from E. “These are great! I made them amazing!” When asked about his favorite part, he of course gave his vote to his usual favorite: cracking eggs. “I liked the part where you put some of the egg in one bowl and the sunshines (yolks) of the eggs in the other. That was pretty funny. And kind of messy.”
This looks terrific… but you don’t specify the amount of boiling water needed!SOS!
Rachel, the boiling water is 1/2 cup plus 2 Tbsp, but you’ll need the full recipe from Cook’s Illustrated. It’s a fairly complicated process.