Triple Chocolate Espresso Brownies

Brownies should taste like chocolate. This should not be a revolutionary concept, and yet, some 50-odd years since they created the boxed brownie mix, chocolate flavor can be missing from the one dessert where it should be highlighted.

Supermarket brownie mixes are not necessarily bad (Epicurious' brownie mix taste test came up with an interesting winner), but when I do make boxed brownies, they are kinda...blah. I feel like I'm in back in school preparing for the drama club bakesale. I usually end up gussying up the final product with mint icing and/or chocolate ganache (here is a ganache recipe from Allrecipes.com that I use).

Let me digress a bit. My aversion to the boxed brownie made me think of one of the marketing legends of post-war America. The story goes that manufacturers of cake mixes were puzzled by the stagnant sales of their just-add-water mixes--why were so many women who could save time by using their product refusing to buy them? The answer, said their research, was that women felt they weren't "really" baking the cakes; the very simplicity of the just-add-water mix made them feel guilty, as if they weren't contributing to the process and couldn't take pride in the results. The marketer's solution? Remove the dried eggs from the mix. If a housewife cracks an egg, she feels as if she's "really" cooking. Sales of cake mixes soared. (There's some truth to this, although the real story is a bit more complicated than that...Snopes.com has a good narrative of the add-an-egg legend, with citations.)

So, to come back to the present, am I simply falling prey to residual guilt over the ease of the boxed brownie? Maybe, but for scratch brownies like these, I will bust through the reverse snobbery. The recipe below is from the May 2000 issue of Cook's Illustrated. If you want a brownie that's actually fairly sophisticated, and packs in the chocolate, this recipe is an excellent option that is not very difficult to make. These are dense and rich, rich, rich with chocolate--so rich, that I recommend that you cut these brownies small (1½ in. x 1½ in.). CI recommends cutting the brownies to an inch wide, but that is far too small--1½ inch square makes this a nice "two-bite brownie".

The espresso adds a real depth of flavor to the chocolate, and somehow makes it taste more chocolatey. If you are going to add ganache to these, I also highly recommend adding rum or liqueur, such as Irish Mist.

Ingredients

• 5 oz. semisweet chocolate (about 60% cacao), chopped
• 2 oz. unsweetened chocolate, chopped
• 8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, in 4 chunks
• 3 tablespoons Dutch cocoa powder
• 1 ½ tablespoons instant espresso powder
• 3 large eggs
• 1 ¼ cups white sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 cup (5 oz.) all-purpose flour

Hardware

• 2 pieces aluminum foil, 12" wide
• 1 8" x 8" square baking pan, preferably straight-sided
• vegetable cooking spray 
• heat-proof bowl (stainless steel works really well, but Pyrex or something similar will work as long as it's of the right size to fit the chocolate and the pot of water)
• pot (to fill with water to gently melt the chocolate)
• toothpick (for testing doneness)

1. Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position and heat oven to 350 degrees. Spray baking pan with nonstick vegetable cooking spray. Fold the two 12-inch pieces of foil lengthwise so that each measures 7 inches wide. Fit one sheet in bottom of greased pan, pushing it into corners and up sides of pan; overhang will help in removal of baked brownies. Fit second sheet in pan in same manner, perpendicular to first sheet. (You're creating a sling that will help you remove the brownies from the pan after baking.) Spray foil with nonstick cooking spray.
2. In medium heatproof bowl set over a pan of almost-simmering water, melt chocolates and butter, stirring occasionally until mixture is smooth. Whisk in cocoa and espresso until smooth. Set aside to cool slightly.
3. Whisk together eggs, sugar, vanilla, and salt in medium bowl until combined, about 15 seconds. Whisk warm chocolate mixture into egg mixture; then stir in flour with wooden spoon until just combined.
4. Pour mixture into prepared pan, spread into corners, and level surface with rubber spatula; bake until slightly puffed and toothpick inserted in center comes out with a small amount of sticky crumbs clinging to it, 35 to 40 minutes. (Start checking the brownies at 25 minutes to avoid dry, overbaked brownies.)
5. Cool on wire rack to room temperature, about 2 hours, then remove brownies from pan using foil sling. Cut into 1½-inch squares and serve. (Do not cut brownies until ready to serve; brownies can be wrapped in plastic and refrigerated up to 5 days.)

Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

Surviving Halloween has never been a problem for my diet. For some reason, I find candy in any form, including chocolate, eminently resistable. However, if you have been reading this blog for any length of time, you know my weakness--baked goods. Pies, pastries, cookies, they all make me weak in the knees  (and in the backbone).

However, if I am going to consume the calories, I want the experience to be worth it, and that means the texture needs to be just right. The pastry should be buttery and flaky, and the cookies must be chewy and moist. (This is why I usually find storebought cookies less than tempting, and also perhaps why I've become ever-so-slightly obsessed with baking my own once I found out how easy it was.)

If, like me, you are a fan of a chewy cookie, this is a great recipe, based on Alton Brown's infamous "The Chewy". A couple tips--using bread flour, which has more protein, in place of all-purpose flour makes for more gluten (what makes good bread chewy) in the finished product. Chilling the dough before baking keeps the cookie from spreading too much in the oven, allowing the exterior to set before the interior has lost too much moisture. Finally, an overbaked cookie will never be chewy and moist, so underbaked is best. The center of the cookie should not be completely set--try to pull the cookies when you can just pick up the edge of a cookie, and it bends, not breaks; then let them finish up outside the oven on the hot cookie sheet for 5 minutes before moving to a wire rack to finish cooling. If the cookie looks baked all the way through, it is already too late (sob!)

With these tips, your cookies should still be chewy goodness three days after you've baked them.

Ingredients
2¼ cups bread flour
2 sticks unsalted butter
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
¼  cup sugar
1¼ cups brown sugar
1 egg
1 egg yolk
2 tablespoons milk
1½ teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips (I recommend Ghirardelli 60% Cacao Bittersweet chips)


Hardware
Ice cream scooper (Alton Brown recommends "a #20 disher, to be exact", but if you don't have one, try a 1/8 cup measure or 2 tablespoons)
Parchment paper
Baking sheets
Mixer (stand or hand)
wire cooling rack

Directions
1. Heat oven to 375 degrees F.
2. Melt the butter in a heavy-bottom medium saucepan over low heat. Sift together the flour, salt, and baking soda and set aside.
3. Pour the melted butter in the mixer's work bowl. Add the sugar and brown sugar. Cream the butter and sugars on medium speed. Add the egg, yolk, 2 tablespoons milk and vanilla extract and mix until well combined. Slowly incorporate the flour mixture until thoroughly combined. Stir in the chocolate chips.
4. Chill the dough, then scoop onto parchment-lined baking sheets, 6 cookies per sheet. Bake for 14 minutes, checking the cookies after 5 minutes, or until golden brown around the edges (but not yet set in the middle). Rotate the baking sheet for even browning. Cool for 5 minutes on the cookie sheet, then remove cookies to a wire cooling rack. Store in an airtight container.