Brownie Report

Brownies fit into three basic classifications: cakey, fudgy and chewy. It took me a while of deliberating just what kind of recipe I was looking for. I ruled out cakey immediately because something fluffy and light seemed more like, well, cake. I wanted to achieve something more or less like the one bite brownies, but couldn’t decide whether or not this would be “fudgy” or “chewy”. I looked around for a one bite brownie emulating recipe and the best I found was for a chewy brownie with these directions: “Prepare brownie mix according to box directions and pour into mini muffin tins.” Thanks for that little gem, Internet.

So, knowing I wanted a chewy recipe now, but with no decent recipes found, I gave up. A few days later, I received the latest issue of Cook’s Illustrated in the mail. It seems they were also having a similar predicament, also wanting to create a recipe with a texture similar to the store bought variety. They found a solution through several hundred test recipes. Luckily for me, I just had to read their results.

The chewiness factor seems to boil down to a 1:3 ratio of saturated to unsaturated fat. That means that a chewier brownie is actually achieved by “cheaping out” and using vegetable oil in place of two thirds of the butter. I find something truly awesome about this fact. In all of my baking efforts (which are fairly limited, I must admit), it’s always been about using butter, and the best quality butter you can afford. Here’s a recipe telling me to swap out some Crisco to improve the results. That’s just great. Not only is it great for this recipe, but it’s great knowing this fact when it comes to making, say, chewy cookies.

Enough about chewiness and on with the show! I modified the recipe slightly. I used natural cocoa powder instead of Dutch-processed and recommend you do the same. Their recipe tries to fortify chocolate flavor in every way, adding instant espresso (a natural compliment to chocolate), unsweetened chocolate, extra chocolate chunks, but chose the significantly more subtle cocoa. I don’t understand it. There are no chemical leaveners for the more acidic natural cocoa to interfere with in the recipe and, as far as I know, using natural cocoa powder only improved the chocolate taste. Otherwise, my only alterations were to omit the extra chocolate chunks, as there is more than enough chocolate action going on to please most chocolate lovers without it. That and shorten their wordy directions.

This recipe is a really good “science experiment” to illustrate the power of emulsifiers I was talking about over on Bread is Pain in my article How to Buy Chocolate. When you combine the cocoa and fats, the whole thing looks like a curdled mess. It is only when you add the eggs, containing lecithin, that the whole thing becomes a satiny smooth mixture. Neat, huh?

Chewy Chocolate Brownies

• 1/3 cup natural cocoa powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoons instant espresso
• 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons boiling water
• 2 ounces unsweetened chocolate, finely chopped
• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
• 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 2 eggs plus 2 egg yolks
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 1/2 cups sugar
• 3/4 teaspoon table salt
• 1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
• (optional) 6 ounces bittersweet chocolate chips or chunks

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and adjust oven rack to lowest position.
2. Line a 13×9″ casserole dish with foil or parchment paper, leaving enough to hang over the edges of the dish for easier removal of the contents later. Spray this lightly with nonstick spray.
3. Whisk together the cocoa powder and instant espresso with the boiling water until smooth, then add the chocolate, stirring until melted.
4. In stages, whisk in the butter, vegetable oil, eggs, vanilla extract, sugar and salt into the chocolate mixture until well incorporated. The mixture should be smooth and satiny.
5. Sift and fold the flour into the chocolate mixture with a spatula. Make sure there are no lumps. Fold in the chocolate chunks, if using.
6. Scrape the batter into your prepared pan and bake until a toothpick can be inserted into the center and come out with just a few crumbs attached to it, about 35 minutes.
7. Remove the pan from the oven and cool for 10 minutes. Remove the brownies as one slab using your prepared foil or parchment handles and set on a cooling rack to cool completely before slicing.

About the only thing I would consider changing with the recipe is an addition of chopped walnuts. Beyond that, I cannot fathom a better brownie recipe.