I have made these brownies about 4-5 times in the last 2 months because they are heavily requested and quite easy for a seasoned baker. If you are not a seasoned baker or do not have many of the tools for this, it might be much much more difficult for you. So I suggest this recipe for experts only. Once you have mastered them, everyone will want them. Rich says he now would consider it child abuse to serve our kid brownies made from a box now that he knows what real ones are like. These are truely chocolate insanity. They are huge, moist and you must make them a day before you need them because they take a long time to cool down before you can cut them, but they are worth the work and the wait (judging by the praise I get because i have never eaten one)
Recipe modified from here Makes 24 2.5 inch square brownies (very big!)
Ingredients
1 pound unsalted butter (4 sticks at room temp)
1 pound plus 12 ounces semisweet chocolate chips
6 ounces unsweetened chocolate
6 large eggs
3 tablespoons instant coffee granules
2 tablespoons vanilla
2 1/4 cups sugar
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Butter and flour (i just used my silpat) a 12 x 18 x 1-inch baking sheet (1/2 sheet pan).
3. Melt together the butter, 1 pound of chocolate chips, and the unsweetened chocolate in a medium bowl over simmering water in a double boiler. Allow to cool slightly.
4. In a large bowl, stir (do not beat) together the eggs, coffee granules, vanilla, and sugar. Stir the warm chocolate mixture into the egg mixture.
5. In a medium bowl, sift together 1 cup of flour, the baking powder, and salt.
6. Add flour mix to the cooled chocolate mixture. Toss 12 ounces of chocolate chips in a medium bowl with 1/4 cup of flour, then fold into the chocolate batter. Pour into the baking sheet.
7. Bake for 20 minutes, then rap the baking sheet against the oven shelf to force the air to escape from between the pan and the brownie dough. Bake for about 15 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean. Top will be shiny but not wet. Do not overbake!
8. Allow to cool thoroughly, refrigerate for a few hours to make cutting easier, and cut into 24 large squares.
Here is my pretty new double boiler that I got for christmas. It works so much better than me trying to balance a bowl on top of a pot. I heart it.. and it is pretty much necessary for this recipe unless you have mastered the balancing bowl-pot act.
Here is the batter going down onto my 1/2 sheet pan and silpat. A silpat is not necessary for this recipe but you will have to thoroughly butter and flour the pan. when mine is done I just run a butter knife (not a sharp knife because it will ruin the silpat) along the edge to loosen the sides and then turn it upside down on the counter and peel off the silpat.. super easy and ready for cutting. If you dont have a 1/2 sheet pan I would suggest splitting the batter into 2 13x9 pans and backing off on the bake time.
Here is what it looks like when it is done. Nice and shiny but not wet. I must remind you that there are giant chocolate chips in this, so your toothpick test might hit one of them and be covered in chocolate giving you a false impression that it is not done. I suggest you do several toothpick tests to make sure you are not hitting a melted chocolate chip. Here you can see that the top of my toothpick hit a chocolate chip, but when turned around and placed in another area it came out clean (bottom of toothpick) so my brownies are done!
Hope you have the stamina to make these, cause they are worth it. If you need them for a party I highly suggest doing them a day before because the cooling process takes hours!
Just in case you were not convinced of the richness and denseness of these brownies, here they are on my food scale.. yes this recipe makes 5 POUNDS of brownies!
