Complex Diagrams

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[I’m justifying posting a recipe here with the thinking that good food is a good user experience.]

These are my favorite brownies. The recipe is shamelessly stolen (and modified) from the The New York Times and The Splendid Table. See those sites for advice on using baking parchment, fancy unpanning, adding nuts (blasphemy!) or frosting, etc. My additions and notes start with an *.



Ingredients:

• 2 sticks (16 tablespoons) of butter, plus extra for the pan
• 8 oz semi-sweet or bittersweet chocolate. * I like the Trader Joe’s Pound Plus bars of bittersweet chocolate. I throw half a bar in, even though it’s more than 8 oz. If they’re out of bittersweet, 1/2 milk and 1/2 dark works too.
• 4 large eggs
• 1 cup dark brown sugar. * If you’ve got normal brown sugar, use a bit more molasses.
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 cup all-pourpose flour
• * 3-4 tablespoons (1/4 cup) molasses
• * 3-4 tablespoons (1/4 cup) bourbon (optional)
• * an extra tablespoon of flour if you use bourbon

Process:

1. Preheat the oven to 350. Thoroughly butter a 13×9 baking pan, including the sides. Use a lot of butter, almost like making an omelette. Preheating the pan in the heating oven helps melt and spread the butter.
2. Chop the chocolate into 1/4″ pieces. Melt the butter and chocolate in a double boiler on low-medium heat.
3. In a large bowl, whisk the eggs, and then add the salt, sugars, vanilla, and * bourbon. * Mix the molases into the butter and chocolate.
4. Stir the chocolate mixture into the large bowl. Then fold in flour.
5. Pour into pan and bake 35-40 minutes. * I use the clean knife test. A little underdone is better than a little overdone. Cool on a rack.

Again, there’s a lot of detail regarding cooling, storage, serving, etc., in the original recipe. It’s true that they’re really good the day after they’re cooked, but that doesn’t mean they’re bad when they’re hot out of the oven. Maybe just make two batches; what else are you going to do with the other half of that chocolate bar?