Recipe Review, Cocoa Brownies by Alton Brown

My project last night was to make brownies from scratch. To complicate matters I was looking for a recipe that only called for basic pantry ingredients, since I only had cocoa powder in the house. Alton is my go to guy for basic recipes, so it made sense to start with him. Fifteen or twenty minutes of perusing the competition online convinced me that I was right. As a CYA here, I’ve linked to the recipe, but I won’t reproduce it here. I’m not sure how Mr. Brown feels about random strangers critiquing his work, sooooooo, we’ll just be a little careful.

As recipes go this was a pretty basic one, eggs, melted butter, sugar, flour, salt, cocoa, etc. The amounts were all reasonable, I mean, I just don’t like a recipe that makes 30 brownies and takes four cups of flour. I don’t keep those quantities on hand, plus, Andrew and I need nine or ten brownies, tops, not 30. I was able to do the whole recipe without an electric mixer. All the dry goods are sifted, which is awkward with the brown sugar, but whatever. Took me about fifteen minutes to put it all together, including buttering the pan and dusting it with flour (although I used cocoa powder, after all, they’re brownies). I followed the recipe instructions, which are pretty basic. I did make sure to add the flour last and to incorporate it with the minimum number of strokes necessary. This is supposed to yield a very tender finished product because the flour cannot build up any gluten as you stir it, which is the thing that makes your baked goods chewy.

Going into the oven, the batter was very thick. We like our brownies on the undercooked side here so I pulled them from the oven after about 50 minutes at 300. A knife inserted in the center came out with a few crumbs. As we also like our brownies warm we did not wait for them to cool completely before consuming them, but AB does say to.

The damage control portion of this evening’s event totaled one mixing bowl, three measuring cups, four utensils, and the sifter. Everything went in the dishwasher except the sifter and the bowl, and I didn’t even get cocoa on the floor, so cleanup was quick.

Finished product was soft, very crumbly, and very good. These are very dark brownies, and they were not overly sweet, which I like. They would pair well with ice cream, fruit, or additions like caramel or peanut butter swirl in the batter. I really want to chop up a RitterSport Milk Chocolate with Whole Hazelnuts and mix that in, but someone in my house doesn’t not like hazelnuts. So, that’s an experiment for another time.

Final Verdict: Good Basic Brownies. These are not apocalyptic, Earth shattering brownies, but they are easy, and they don’t require any special ingredients. They’d make a great base to a fancier dessert, or for cooking with a tiny helper, since there are no sharp utensils, and sifting would be fantastic to delegate to small, eager hands. Just be safe around the oven and turn a blind eye to the inevitable dusting of cocoa all over your kitchen.



As a side note, try the RitterSport Milk Chocolate with Whole Hazelnuts some time. They carry them at Target or some grocery stores. Most satisfying chocolate bar ever. Nice square bars, so you can easily break it up for multiple small servings.

AH


Edit:  This is now day four since I baked the brownies.  First, let's all cheer that they lasted four days.  Second, they get better with age.  Day four is much fudgier and less cake-like than day one.  Definitely worth the wait.