Brownie of the year 2012, plus it's recession friendly(ish)

My brilliant editor Claire gave me this recipe ages ago.  I baked them, loved them, forgot to blog them.

Since then I've been on a long, failure-filled quest towards the perfect brownie.  Last week I baked a recipe from an ex-Gavroche chef.  His version: awesome, mine: a runny disappointment, not worth typing up.

I return to Claire's recipe today.   As ever I decided to muck about with it and try to make it my own by reducing the sugar and adding dark chocolate chips and vanilla extract. It's in the oven as we speak and I am writing this, half-fearful, half-hopeful.  Suffice to say I licked the spoon to the point of indecency, so flavourwise at least I think it'll be fine...

Here's the line up:

250g unsalted butter
100g plain flour, sieved
400g dark chocolate (Bourneville), broken into melt-able pieces
3 eggs
240g dark muscovado sugar
70g dark chocolate chips
1 tsp baking powder
1 pinch of salt
1 tsp vanilla extract

Three points on ingredients:

Firstly and most importantly: chocolate.  We live in an age of chocolate snobs.  Anything less than Valrhona 70% solids in the shopping basket marks you out as someone who forages from the bins behind Nando's.  Consequently a good old fashioned bar such as Bourneville is no longer as widely available as, say, Green & Blacks.

Unsurprising.  Cadbury make both and charge a lot more for the latter.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Bourneville is better chocolate, just that sometimes, in some recipes - for example this one - you don't need to jizz £2+ on 100g of dark chocolate.

Secondly - dark muscavado sugar:

Reminds me of Fozzie bear...  Not my favourite muppet (lacks edge: give me Animal, Piggy or Waldorf.)  But a muppet nonetheless, and I do love muppets.  I digress.  Dark muscavado, with its treacly smell and soft brown granules holds the promise of melting caramel goodness and makes white caster look somehow chemical and un-foody.

Finally: the dark chocolate chips.  These are entirely unnecessary for a happy, healthy brownie.  Some might argue they're gilding the lily (a misquote from Shakesepeare's, King John, 1595.  The text actually says to gild refined gold, to paint the lily.)  The point is, you don't need them but I love them and will attempt to put them anywhere I can.  Admittedly these chips look a little old and dusty, possibly also from 1595...

However the packaging promises great things:

THE RECIPE

1. Pre-heat the oven to 170C.

2. Line a brownie tin with greaseproof paper.

3. In a medium sized bowl, sieve together the flour, baking powder and salt - stir briefly to mix - and put to one side.

4. Put the butter and chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of barely simmering water (I usually put an inch of water in the saucepan.)  Melt very gently, stir a lot, you do not want to overheat the chocolate.  Bourneville is a lot lighter when it melts than posher chocolate (37% cocoa solids vs. 70%+).

Remove from the heat when both have melted and are looking beautiful and velvety.

5. In your final bowl, i.e. the bowl you're going to end up putting all the ingredients in (so make sure it's big enough and has room to stir and whisk) break the eggs.

6. With an electric handwhisk, whisk them on a gentle speed for a minute to get some air in.  They should just look beaten by the time you're done - you're not expecting any major state change.

7. Keep whisking gently and add the dark muscovado sugar, one spoon at a time.  (Tablespoon or approximation is fine, the point is to do it gradually.)  By the end of this stage you should have a medium caramel coloured, quite thick combo of egg and sugar.  The whole egg and sugar stage should take no longer than 3 minutes.

8. With a metal spoon, mix in the melted chocolate and butter mixture and the vanilla extract.  When you're done it'll look like this:

9. With a spatula - in this instance with Albert the spatula - gently fold in the flour, baking powder + salt mix.

10.  When combined chuck in the chocolate chips, give one more gentle stir with the spatula, and pour into the brownie tin.

The mixture will be extremely thick (cast of TOWIE thick) at this point.

11. Put in the middle of the middle shelf of your oven for 40 minutes.  As per the golden rule of brownies, most clearly articulated by Ottolenghi in his first book, timing is all: better to under than overdo, watch like a hawk, know your oven, etc.

The finished brownies should have risen and be starting to firm up on top.  Put a skewer in and it should still come out a bit sticky (I lack skewers, hence the fork):

I was slightly scared of the monster I'd created at this stage.  As you'll see it has developed a slightly plasticky looking, wrinkly film, which looks even more alarming in close-up:

Fear not.  It all works out in the end.

Leave to cool in the tin for about 30 mins, then transfer to a wire cooling rack.

Have just eaten this brownie at around 50 minutes after oven-release time, and I have to say it is  definitely the best brownie I've baked or eaten this year.  It is everything I ever want in a brownie:

Intensely chocolatey
Fudgy
Perfect texture combo: definite firm crispy crust on the top, immediately giving way to light yet lush fudginess, with the added treat of semi-molten melted chips within.

Warning - it is full on and not for the faint hearted.  If you don't like extremely rich, deep, dark chocolate brownies, then avoid this brownie.  But if you like brownies that look like this:

  and taste like happiness, then give it a go.