It's Everywhere: The Baked Brownie

It was seriously starting to become an obsession.

I felt like every blog I turned to, or almost, featured a brownie. I'm not talking about any old brownie--all I read about was the Baked brownie.

Baked, for those not familiar with it, is a bakery in the Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn. If you live in New York, make a stop next time you go to Ikea. That, or go to Baked, then stop by Ikea. We all know it's difficult to be within a mile of Ikea and not step in. And once you've stepped in, well, the downward spiral begins: candles, pizza cutters, sheets... I know, you needed all that.

In any case, trip to Ikea or not, the brownie at Baked has made quite a reputation for itself. In its "true" version, it benefits from the addition of ancho chile powder and fresh ground ginger. I can only imagine the depth of flavor from the pairing of dark chocolate, sprightly ginger, and a little heat. I ran across the original version a few times, and then some tweaks, here and there. Toffee and pretzels were a welcome addition, and a pared-down chocolate-only brownie was equally appealing.

Daydreams and nightmares about brownies soon invaded my life--I could no longer deal with the pressure. Worse than Mean Girls and high school cliques, I just had to give in to the trend. I was finally going to get up close and personal with the Baked brownie.

It came together quickly, and I made two versions, both omitting chili powder. Mini brownies filled with peanut butter chips, for work, and a larger brownie for two (or three, but not really). The top seemed disappointingly cake-like, and I began to be doubtful. What if the Baked brownie didn't live up to all the hype in my kitchen?

My first bite proved me wrong: the texture is chewy yet silky. It melts in your mouth like a perfectly fudgy brownie should, yet it has de la matière, as the French say. This is a brownie that can be proud of itself, and that you, of course, could be very proud of as well.

Now if only I could find out how to recreate Red Hook and an Indian Summer in my apartment...

The Baked Brownie
adapted from Baked - New Frontiers in Baking
makes 16 brownies 

3/4 c. all-purpose flour
1/4 TS salt
1 TB + 1 TS Dutch-processed cocoa powder
5 oz. dark chocolate, chopped
1 stick unsalted butter, cut into pieces
3/4 c. granulated sugar
1/4 c. brown sugar
3 eggs
1 TS vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350°. Butter an 8x8 inch pan, muffin pan, or mini-muffin pan.

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, salt, and cocoa powder.

Melt chocolate and butter over a double boiler. Turn heat off and add sugars. Mix until combined. Remove from heat and let cool for approximately 20 minutes.

Add eggs  and vanilla to chocolate-butter mixture and whisk until just combined. Do not overmix!

Sprinkle flour mixture over chocolate. Fold in until combined, oce again without overmixing.

Pour batter into the pan and bake for anywhere from 15 minutes (in a mini-muffin pan) to 40 minutes (8x8 inch pan), until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with a few moist crumbs attached.

Cool completely before serving.

A Seriously Fudgy Brownie

Brownies belong to the category of sweet treats people get really heated up about. Cake-brownie lovers can get really mean with the fudge advocates, and vice versa. Although, side note: Are there really any cake-brownie lovers out there? Psh!

I wouldn't even put the two in the same room, and even less have them participate in a brownie tasting party. Well, that's mostly because they probably wouldn't leave any for me. In any case, brownie texture is one serious subject. You'll find articles about how to make the perfect brownie, and sometimes when you think your batch is going to be perfect...it just fails. What I find strange is that even though I admittedly have no problem raising my fist high in the air and proclaiming my love for fudge brownies, I don't really remember if the ones I ate as a child were really all that fudge-like. All I remember is that they sure were good, and I would willingly eat a whole pan of them right now. (Hey, I went to a blood drive this afternoon, so I can have twenty of anything, right? Giving a half liter of blood is a good excuse for chocolate, in my opinion.)

Up until last week, I felt like every time I made a pan of brownies, they just weren't the way I imagined. They were never fudgey (fudgy?) enough, or always undercooked if they weren't a little cakey. And then, I found it. The recipe. You might try other recipes...but I'm pretty sure you'll always go back to this one. I first saw it on Shauna's wonderful blog, Piece of Cake, and have been smitten ever since. Surprisingly, the only source of chocolate is cocoa powder, but these little guys don't disappoint. Super fudgy, super tasty, they're everything you've always asked the Easter Bunny for in a brownie.

I baked half "naked" (whoa, that sounded wrong! I meant to say that I baked half a batch without anything on top, not "half naked"), and the other half topped with peanut butter chips. I don't have a favorite since I could be seen devouring them little bite by little bite (justified by the fact that I wasn't supposed to be baking these for me), and both made me quite happy. And they'll make you happy, too. The Easter Bunny told me so.

Fantastic Brownies

adapted from Piece of Cake, adapted from Alice Medrich's Bittersweet

makes one 8x8-in pan of brownies

Note: that can mean 16 brownies, just like it can mean 4 if your name is Lucie. Just saying!

1 stick unsalted butter
1 1/4 c. sugar
3/4 c. plus 2 TB unsweetened cocoa powder (natural or Dutch-process)
1/4 TS salt
1/2 TS vanilla extract
2 eggs, cold
1/2 c. all-purpose flour
1/2 c. peanut butter chips (optional)

 

Position a rack in the lower third of the oven and preheat the oven to 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 in a medium heatproof bowl and set the bowl in a wide skillet of barely simmering water. Stir occasionally until the butter is melted and the mixture is smooth, though it will appear somewhat gritty. Remove the bowl from the skillet and set aside briefly until the mixture is only warm, not at all hot.

Stir in the vanilla with a wooden spoon. Add the eggs one at a time, stirring well after each one. When the batter looks thick, shiny, and well-blended, add the flour and stir until all the streaks of flour disappear, then beat vigorously for 40 more strokes with the wooden spoon or a rubber spatula. Spread evenly in pan. Sprinkle with peanut butter chips, if using.

Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center emerges slightly moist with batter, about 35 minutes. (Shauna's version said 25 minutes, but it took a little longer for me) Let cool completely on a wire rack. Set the pan in the freezer for 10 minutes (it will make for clean cutting of the brownies). (I didn't have the freezer space for this, but it would definitely help)

Lift up the ends of the parchment or foil liner, and transfer the brownies to a cutting board. Cut into squares.

Fluffernutter...Brownies?

When I was younger, and still of age to have my maman pack my lunch in my pink sticker-decorated lunchbox, I was often a little frustrated. The kids at my lunch table had Lunchables, Fruit Roll-Ups and Capri Sun. Me? I had fresh veggies, Juicy Juice berry juices, and "fruit leather". You know what I'm talking about: strips made of 100% fruit, in 20 kinds of different flavors.

Who had the best lunch? Well, I guess that depends on the person you ask. Like girls who have straight hair wanting it to be curly and vice versa, I wanted what I couldn't have. This may be hard to believe, but I was longing to dig into a bag of Fritos instead of carrots and homemade yogurt dip. Sure, now that I look back, I'm pretty sure my kids will be eating the same thing for lunch--and last year in New York, fruit leather was my snack of choice. But back then, all I wanted was artifical coloring and high fructose corn syrup.

My maman didn't give in--she went the sly way. It would have been too easy to just say no, and leave me with a strange fantasy of living in a world of junk food. But she said yes. Yes, I could try Lunchables once, and even pick my "type". I could try Fruit Roll-Ups, and I could even try Capri Sun. I picked the pizza Lunchables because it looked cool--who would say no to the prospect of making their own pizza for lunch? That was without considering that it was more like making an uncooked pizza on cardboard bread. The Lunchables version of a pizza consists of "bread", tomato sauce and cheese that you just pile on top of one another and eat. Strange way to see it, to say the least. You could say that after that episode, Lunchables were no longer my ideal lunch. Fruit Roll-Ups? They stick to your teeth even more than fruit leather, and don't taste like anything. Plus, those dollar signs you're supposed to be able to cut out always tear and never look like anything cool. And don't get me started on Capri Sun. Between that and Sunny Delight, I don't really know which one makes me want to run and down 5 glasses of water to take the taste away. I tried, and I went back to my trusty good-for-you lunches.

One thing I never tried, however, was the Fluffernutter. I actually didn't know such a thing existed before reading about it a few weeks ago. Marshmallow Fluff, peanut butter and bread--it sounded strange, but I was intrigued. I had marshmallow creme (creme? cream? I've seen 'creme' in some US articles too) left over from my fudge, and had some peanut butter on hand. I had no bread, but something even better...pretzels. Needless to say, I had a junk food revelation a few days ago--fluffernutter pretzels are my new guilty snack.

Staying on my fluffernutter bender, I was planning on baking some brownies for a group work session for school, and wanted to customize them a little. My "aha!" moment came when I realized marshmallow fluff + peanut butter + brownies was a possibility, and that these brownies were a must try. I started out with a classic recipe from America's Test Kitchen, and added some peanut butter and marshmallow cream that I swirled into the batter with a knife. Unfortunately, the marshmallow that stayed on the top of the brownie decided to go campfire on me and started to burn for some reason... But I pulled them out right before they were burnt burnt, and they had that bonfire taste that was pretty enjoyable.



I won't be asking for a fluffernutter version of Lunchables anytime soon, but these brownies do the trick. Plus, they're homemade, which makes it perfect: giving the feeling of junk food in a not-so-junky snack.

Fluffernutter Brownies
Makes approx. 16 brownies

8 TB butter
3 oz (approx 90g) bittersweet chocolate
2/3 c. all-purpose flour
1/2 TS baking powder
1/4 TS salt
2/3 c. granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 TS vanilla extract
several spoonfulls peanut butter & marshmallow cream

Preheat oven to 350°F / 180°C. Line an 8-in square baking pan with a foil sling.

Melt butter and chocolate together in a double boiler, and let cool slightly.

In a medium bowl, whisk dry ingredients together. In a large bowl, whisk together sugar, eggs, and vanilla. Add melted chocolate mixture until combined, and stir in dry ingredients until just incorporated.

Scrape batter into pan, and drop peanut butter and marshmallow fluff in small dollops. Run a butter knife through the batter to create swirls.

Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out with a few crumbs attached, 27 to 30 minutes. Rotate pan halfway through baking.

Let brownies cool completely before cutting into squares.

Fudgy Brownies: an Update

Just as I thought, the great fudgy brownies needed too be baked a lot less longer--they were perfect at 20 minutes. The center of the brownie was nice and dense, chewy, and most importantly delicious!

Brownies : To be (fudgy) or not to be...

Blurry Brownie

I believe I've pretty much mastered the one single blondie recipe I've ever made. A sign of 'mastering' a baking recipe, in my opinion, is being able to eat the whole thing--even better, hiding it from friends to keep more for yourself--and that's exactly what baking a blondie results in for me.

Brownies are on a whole different level. Sure, I can eat a brownie, but I can't really eat 15 of them. Not that I could eat 15 blondies, right? I can sense that I'm not really fooling anyone--I can eat 15 blondies, but over the course of a 24-hour day. That sounds better.

Anyway, prior to last week I had only made one batch of brownies. It was more cake-like than fudgey, and my disappointment shot up every time I would bite into them and taste...cake. So imagine my excitement when I found an America's Test Kitchen recipe for Ultimate Fudgy Brownies. I was already picturing dense and gooey fudge brownies, especially since there are other non-fudge-like recipes in the America's Test Kitchen book. If this is the "ultimate" fudge brownie, I thought, I'm in for a wild ride.

It started out great: the batter was delicious. So delicious that I had too much and got a stomach ache for the rest of the night (note: this never ever happens with blondie batter). I followed the recipe's baking instructions and even took them out 3 or 4 minutes earlier than recommended. I didn't wait for them to cool--who does, really--and popped a tiny chunk into my mouth.

Fudgey, sort of. Cakey, sort of.

How can that be?? I was so disappointed, but they were still good. Not as good as I hoped though (however my expectations were high and very precise), so I'll have to try again. Or just make plain old fudge, and let the brownie be itself.

Ultimate Fudgy Brownies - America's Test Kitchen Family Baking Book

makes 16 brownies

5 oz bittersweet chocolate, chopped coarse

2 oz unsweetened chocolate, chopped coarse (I didn't differentiate between the two and just used Nestle Dessert Noir brought back from France)

8 tbsp (1 stick) unsalted butter

3 tbsp Dutch-processed cocoa powder

1 1/4 c. sugar

3 large eggs

2 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 tsp salt

1 c. all-purpose flour.

Preheat oven to 350°F and adjust an oven rack to the middle position. Line an 8-inch square baking pan with a foil sling and grease the foil--I used a standard rectangular glass pan and it was fine.

Melt chocolates, butter, and cocoa together in the microwave (or over a double boiler). Let the mixture cool slightly.

In a large bowl, whisk the sugar, eggs, vanilla and salt together. Whisk in the melted chocolate mixture until combined. Stir in the flour until just incorporated.

Bake the brownies until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with a few moist crumbs attached, 35 to 40 minutes (test it at 25 minutes, it might be just how you want it!). Rotate the pan halfway through baking. 

Le the brownies cool completely in the pan, about 2 hours (ha! yeah right, like anyone can wait that long). Cut into squares and serve.