22 January 2020
Recipe from The Perfect Cookie, America's Test Kitchen, 2017, p. 245; also available online.
I've tried numerous recipes for brownies but I am always up to try a new one. When one of the recipes in the recently published America's Test Kitchen Top 20 recipe list was for brownies I knew I had to try it, especially since it had been a while since I had made brownies. This recipe came from the season 11 of ATK in 2011. Maybe this will be THE brownie recipe.
The brownies were easy to make with all of the mixing done by hand. Dutch-processed cocoa powder and espresso powder were dissolved in boiling water. (The espresso was listed as optional in the recipe and I used half of the suggested amount.) Chopped unsweetened chocolate was whisked in until melted. Vegetable oil and melted butter were whisked in followed by eggs, egg yolks, vanilla, and sugar. Next, all-purpose flour and salt were folded into the batter. To provide a final hit of chocolate, chunks of bittersweet chocolate were added. The batter was baked in a 13x9-inch baking dish lined with an aluminum foil sling. Total time was a little over an hour not counting cooling.
These are good brownies, it is easy to understand why they are so popular with ATK readers. They have a nice, chewy texture and good chocolate flavor. The chunks of bittersweet chocolate provide bonus chocolate flavor that provides pleasant surprises distributed randomly throughout the brownie. My batter seemed to have more bubbles in it than seen in the TV show or cookbook, but this didn't detract from the flavor or texture. The brownies take about the same time to prepare as a batch of cookies. The cookbook includes a variation with a chocolate frosting that might be worth trying.
The brownies were easy to make with all of the mixing done by hand. Dutch-processed cocoa powder and espresso powder were dissolved in boiling water. (The espresso was listed as optional in the recipe and I used half of the suggested amount.) Chopped unsweetened chocolate was whisked in until melted. Vegetable oil and melted butter were whisked in followed by eggs, egg yolks, vanilla, and sugar. Next, all-purpose flour and salt were folded into the batter. To provide a final hit of chocolate, chunks of bittersweet chocolate were added. The batter was baked in a 13x9-inch baking dish lined with an aluminum foil sling. Total time was a little over an hour not counting cooling.
These are good brownies, it is easy to understand why they are so popular with ATK readers. They have a nice, chewy texture and good chocolate flavor. The chunks of bittersweet chocolate provide bonus chocolate flavor that provides pleasant surprises distributed randomly throughout the brownie. My batter seemed to have more bubbles in it than seen in the TV show or cookbook, but this didn't detract from the flavor or texture. The brownies take about the same time to prepare as a batch of cookies. The cookbook includes a variation with a chocolate frosting that might be worth trying.
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