Classic Brownies

I discovered Cook's Illustrated at the gym, of all places. I wanted some reading material while I ran so I dug through the pile of magazines and found the March & April 2004 issue of Cook's Illustrated. The recipe for Classic Brownies, Not Cakey, Not Fudgy, Just Right caught my eye. On a previous Saturday I was over at a friends house making cakey brownies, since this was the way Ben liked them. The "brownies" turned out to be more of a chocolate cake. This time around I wanted brownies just as the title promised, Not Cakey, Not Fudgy, Just Right.

The tester cut back on the usual 2 sticks of butter to 1 and half sticks for less greasy brownies and used cake flour (which is milled from softer wheat that all-purpose flour and contributes less protein, or gluten, to a recipe) to produce a less gritty and finer-textured product. One of the goals the tester set out to do was to pump up the chocolate flavor and she did this by increasing the amount of unsweetened chocolate instead of combining chocolate and cocoa powder because increasing cocoa by small amounts did not add much to the chocolate flavor.

The resulting brownies had an extremely intense chocolate flavor. Anyone that knows me probably knows about my obsessing with chocolate (especially dark chocolate) and even at my level, the recipe's chocolate flavor was just too overpowering. The recipe called for 6oz. of unsweetened chocolate so while at the grocery store I picked up 2 bars of Ghirardelli's 100% unsweetened chocolate. I'll probably substitute some semi-sweet chocolate for the next batch.

Texture wise, it was melt in your mouth goodness and just as promised wasn't too fudgy or cakey =] If you do refrigerate it though, make sure to microwave it for about 13sec. or else it'll feel like biting into a block of fudge. I did add one adjustment to the recipe, I sprinkled some chocolate chips on top (what?! I can't help it).