The Perfect Brownies

I bake these brownies whenever I am baking for someone I know LOVES chocolate or I want to bake, but don’t have the time to do cookies or cupcakes. I’ve baked these twice in the last month and both times, they’ve been a big hit. They’re delicious. However, I take absolutely no credit for this recipe. It is from How to Cook Like Your Grandmother, a great cooking website. You can find the original here; I prefer the thicker version, which he shared in the comments and I’ll share below…

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Ingredients:

2 cups sugar

1 cup flour

1 cup cocoa powder

4 eggs

1 cup butter, melted

1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

The assembly is about as easy as you can get. Combine the sugar, flour, cocoa, eggs and melted butter and mix. Do this by hand, until the dry ingredients are just incorporated into the wet, and stop. You don’t need to beat it, and in fact want to avoid producing gluten from the flour. (Kneading flour produces gluten, the springy protein that makes bread chewy.)

Stir in the chocolate chips.

Bake at 325° for 30-35 minutes. It’s done when a toothpick inserted in the tallest part comes out clean. Keep in mind you’ve got chips in there. If you hit one with the toothpick it will have melted chocolate on it. You might need to poke a couple of spots to make sure you aren’t hitting a chip.

What you need to know is to use the best quality cocoa and chocolate chips you can find. With only 6 ingredients, this is really important. I love Ghiradelli’s, which I buy at Super Target. I also add a large handful of walnuts if I have them. Also, when you bake brownies, you don’t want to have a totally clean toothpick when you check to see if they are done. I think they’re best when there is a bit of brownie stuck to it, but it’s not totally gooey. Enjoy!