Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Chocolate brownies, Version 2.0

I wasn't planning on writing about these when I made them yesterday. I was working on another post, something savory and doughy and all kinds of wonderful, but then these brownies happened. They went ahead and stole the show.






I couldn't just sit here and not share them with you. Good things need to be shared, and in this case, as soon as possible.






Back in February, I waxed poetic about my favorite chocolate brownies, but little did I know that they were going to be replaced in my heart only a few months later by these dark beauties. Don't blame me, it's all Nigella Lawson's fault.






These are better and got rave reviews from everyone who tried them. They are fudgy and gooey and rich and moist and dense and they have a small surprise hidden inside; white chocolate chips. Double chocolate threat, double chocolate goodness.






The chocoholic in me has awakened, once again. I think I ate too many brownies for my own good. I'm gonna have to exercise twice as hard tomorrow. Treadmill, here I come!











Fudgy Chocolate Brownies with White Chocolate Chips
Slightly adapted from Feast

As with all brownies, the secret is in the baking time. Bake them for too long and they'll become cakey and crumbly and that's the death of a good brownie. Take them out of the oven a few minutes sooner and they'll be a gooey mess. So, trust the recipe, your oven and your cake tester, or toothpick.

I urge you to use good quality white chocolate with at least 25% cocoa butter content. The cheap white chocolate from the supermarket is generally awful. The cocoa butter content is very low, substituted mostly by other (unhealthy) fats, and all you get is a foul tasting chocolate. I'm not suggesting that you spend your month's salary on chocolate, just be aware of what you use and buy.

You can use either a hand wire whisk or a hand held mixer for these. I opted for the hand held mixer. It's easier.






Yield: 24 large brownies

Ingredients
350 g unsalted butter, cut into cubes
380 g good quality dark chocolate (55-60% cocoa solids), cut into small pieces
6 medium-sized eggs
350 g caster sugar
1 heaped tsp vanilla bean paste or 2 tsp vanilla extract
225 g all purpose flour
1 tsp salt
250 g good quality white chocolate chips (I use Callebaut)

Special equipment: wire whisk or hand-held mixer, 32 x 22 x 5 cm rectangular baking pan, baking paper


Preparation
Butter the bottom and sides of the pan and line the bottom with a piece of baking paper.

Place the butter and the chocolate in a bowl set over a pan of barely simmering water (bain marie) and melt, stirring often. The bottom of the bowl must not come in contact with the simmering water. Once the mixture is smooth and melted, remove bowl from the top of the pan and set aside to cool slightly.

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius / 360 Fahrenheit.

Meanwhile, in a large bowl, add the sugar and eggs and beat well with a wire whisk or a hand held mixer (on medium speed), until the mixture is frothy and well blended. Add the vanilla and beat to incorporate it.
When the butter and chocolate mixture has cooled down a bit, add it to the sugar and eggs mixture. Beat well with the wire whisk or the hand held mixer (on medium speed), until incorporated. Add the flour and salt, and mix well with a spatula until the mixture is smooth and there are no visible white patches of flour. Add the white chocolate chips and fold them in with the spatula.


Pour the brownie mixture into the prepared baking pan and place on the middle rack of the preheated oven. Bake for 25-26 minutes, until the top has cracked and has taken on a light brown color, and a cake tester, knife or toothpick inserted in the middle, comes out with moist crumbs attached. Start checking at the 24 minute mark to make sure you don't overcook it. Keep in mind that the brownies will continue to cook as they cool down.

Once the brownies are ready, take the pan out of the oven and place it on a wire rack to cool. Then, remove the brownies from the pan by inverting it onto the wire rack. Remove and discard the baking paper and allow the brownies to cool completely. Invert them onto a cutting board and cut them into 24 squares.
They taste better once they have cooled completely rather than warm.

Keep the brownies covered, at room temperature, for 3-4 days.

Enjoy!





13 comments:

  1. I am a chocoholic and will have to give these a try! They looks delicious and I love the idea of white chocolate in them. Yummy!

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  2. No such thing as too many brownies! I love the idea of adding white chocolate chips to these :)

    Sues

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  3. These babies look perfectly fudgy in every way imaginable. 2.0, I am with you!

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  4. Now this is my kinda brownie! My favorite recipe is also a Nigella recipe so I am not surprised. When I commented on your other brownie post, this is exactly what I had in mind... so now we have the same favorite kind of brownie. I will try the white choc chips, although I am truly a sucker for nuts in my brownies.

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  5. Wow, what beautiful brownies! I am rather a brownie snob...moist with an outside bit of crunch is what I love...very chocolate...dark and dense. Your recipe, via Nigella, is perfect and easy and I shall try it when my next craving hits. Beautiful.

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  6. What on earth could possibly be bad about these brownies??? All the major food groups are represented, right? ... chocolate, butter, sugar, more chocolate... You know, just to be sure they are the best, maybe we should all bake batches of 1.0 and 2.0 simultaneously and then eat them when we are ON the treadmill...

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  7. These look fabulous! I will make them soon, well, today, actually, because I am now out of my bag of Mars bars! (I know, terrible ) so the withdrawal will start tomorrow~

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  8. Your brownies look wonderful! I love the look of the shiny top and gooey interior... yum!

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  9. I have had too many desserts made with cheap, overly sweet white chocolate. You are right--you must use something of high quality, like those delectable little Callebaut discs---otherwise you are wasting time and chocolate.
    The recipe looks really good.
    These must taste sublime, if you have set aside your other great brownies in favor of them.

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  10. Mmmmm, decadently sinful and rich. My husband isn't a fan of desserts so I'll make them when my children visit us or when we visit them.

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  11. I'm a huge brownie fan so I look forward to trying this recipe. I love that they look dark and chewy!

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  12. Can i substitute the white choc cip with milk choc cip.if yes what ingredient shall i add or reduce?
    Thanks

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    1. You can, and you won't need to add or reduce an ingredients. White chocolate is about as sweet as milk chocolate so it should be okay to leave the rest of the ingredients as is. Good luck!

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