Dear Flist,

[eruthros]

I ask google for an answer to this question all the time, but google is untrustworthy, so.

What is your favorite brownie recipe? My ideal brownie is fudgey, not cakey, and very chocolatey. It can have nuts, chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, whatever, I'm good as long as it's basically a fudgey, chocolately brownie. But my success rate in finding a recipe for same is pathetic; many of them come out dry, or cakey, or dry AND cakey, or aren't chocolatey enough. Thus, I ask you! Because you are awesome.

kthxbye,
eruthros

Comments

[redbyrd-sgfic.livejournal.com]

Ooh. A good question. But I like cakey brownies, so my fave recipe probably won't be to your taste.

But, I anticipate that there will be a period of experimentation, and a need to eat unsatisfactory results. If you warm up the unworthy brownie and eat it with ice cream and a little fudge sauce, I'm sure you'll get through this with as much grace as possible. To assist you in this endeavor, I offer you my mom's homemade hot fudge recipe (douse a brownie in this, and I guarantee adequate chocolatiness):

Hot Fudge Sauce
1 can (14 1/2 oz) evaporated milk
2 C sugar
4 oz unsweetened chocolate
1/4 C butter
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp salt

Heat milk and sugar to rolling boil, stirring constantly. Boil and stir 1 min. Add chocolate, stirring until melted. Beat over heat until smooth. If sauce has a slightly curdled appearance, beat vigorously until creamy smooth. Remove from heat, and blend in butter, vanilla and salt. Makes 3 cups.

[graycastle.livejournal.com]

weeeell, I'm not completely satisfied with the brownie recipe I have, but it is neither dry nor cakey, happily accepts nuts/chocolate chips/butterscotch chips but can live without them, and above all, takes like 3 seconds to make. It's a little too flat, and a bit too crisp on top, but it's pretty good. Comme ca:

1/2 c butter (margerine will also work)
2 squares unsweetened chocolate
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
3/4 cup flour
Melt together margarine and chocolate. Remove from heat; stir in sugar. Add eggs and vanilla and heat just till blended. Stir in flour. Spread in a greased 8x8x2 pan. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes. Makes 16.

Though I will caution you that the "makes sixteen" part of the recipe is laughably untrue, since it assumes that you're going to have, what, half-inch brownies? fuck that! anyway, as above, add anything you want; I sometimes add walnuts.

[darthrami.livejournal.com]

Sadly, I do not have a favorite brownie recipe. There are very tasty ones, and S makes fantastic brownies, but none of them quite get the consistancy that I love. My favorite brownies, fwiw, are the Ghiardelli ones with the chips. S informs me that these are "fudgy".

[ryca.livejournal.com]

I concur. The Hershey's box has brought me some happiness/success in the past as well, although it's a box and all.

[gawlfor.livejournal.com]

I probably shouldn't admit it, but my favorite is actually just the Safeway mix. It comes out nice and dense every time, and chocolatey, and crunchy on the edges. After using the box the first time, I never felt the need to seek out an original recipe (in the 6 or so times I've made brownies ever).

[redbyrd-sgfic.livejournal.com]

Okay, you've awakened my geometry sense.

An 8 by 8 pan cut into a 4 x4 grid will yield 16 brownies, two inches square. Cut into one inch brownies, you'll get 64, half-inch brownies will be 256. OTOH, 2 inches square is not a *generously* sized brownie- no reasonable person would quibble if you cut it into a 3 x 3 grid for a total of 9 brownies. And doing a 2 x 2 grid (4 brownies) would save you the trouble of eating two or three. (My father takes a very direct approach to these things. He says, "Cut it in half, I can't eat more than two pieces.")

Important non-mathematical questions to consider- how many people will theoretically consume these brownies? Will they feel more guilty at eating one large one or several smaller ones? How large a brownie sundae will existing bowl technology support..?

Dang. Now I'm hungry.

[graycastle.livejournal.com]

hahaha - thank you for the correction! It seemed wrong when I typed it, but I was too out of it to stop and think about it. Square inches, of course, of course.

The other question, of course, arises when you start thinking about putting two recipes' worth of brownie into the same 8x8 pan: the resulting brownies are twice as tall, but can still make the same two-dimensional sizes. But, in three dimensions, they're much bigger.

[eruthros]

Hee! I'm usually too distracted by guests -- because I always start the brownies too late, so they're not cool until after people arrive -- to manage to cut them into anything like squares, let alone squares of similar size! I'm one of those people who gets nine brownies out of an 8x8 pan, but some of them are four inches wide and some of them are kinda L-shaped. :)

[eruthros]

My trouble is, I'm usually trying to use up something when I make brownies. Like chocolate that's gone a little discolored, and won't be good for other things. Box recipes are unhelpful in that regard! (Though they make good brownies.)

[eruthros]

We do POTLUCKS. I ask you. I usually make cookies, but then you have to spend time taking the cookie sheet out of the oven and putting on more dough and so on, and with brownies you just bake them 30 minutes and then you're done. SO.

[redbyrd-sgfic.livejournal.com]

Ah, but when you change the cross section, you now have to heat twice as much batter with only a small increase in surface area. Since the thermal heat transfer properties of the brownie batter have not changed, you have to adjust time and temperature to avoid getting crispy black brownies on the outside and squishy raw brownie on the inside...

[graycastle.livejournal.com]

well, naturally. but, for reals, I've done it - it works with this recipe, given said adjustments.

[eruthros]

Ooooh, that looks fabulous! I quite like hot fudge sauce.

The trouble is, evaporated milk isn't something I usually have in my cupboard. I may have to remedy that; you can use it to make dulce de leche, too.

[eruthros]

Mmmmm. That looks nummy!

I made some satisfactory ones from this recipe the other day, for this potluck. They were decent, but the top was a little too flaking-fragmented, and they weren't QUITE as dense as I like.

[redbyrd-sgfic.livejournal.com]

But it's canned, and therefore is easy to keep on hand for, ah, emergency brownie disposal. :)

Also it can be used in pumpkin pie.

I believe the last time I made hot fudge, the last of it disappeared rather precipitously.

Me: What happened to the hot fudge?
J: *looks way too innocent* Hot fudge?
Me: But we're out of ice cream.
J: ??
Me: Oh.

Apparently the concept that hot fudge should be eaten on a substrate is rarer than I realized....

[eruthros]

Ha! I am amused that you call ice cream or brownies the substrate, because when I talk about cookies I describe my ideal ones as "essentially entirely chocolate chip and almond and coconut inclusions, bound together by a thin matrix of cookie dough."

Canned = heavy. I walk for my groceries! *g*

[redbyrd-sgfic.livejournal.com]

Canned = heavy. I walk for my groceries! *g*

So what you're saying is, you can eat infinite very large amounts amounts of hot fudge with no guilt. Right?

Although in the 'being a bad influence' category, I must point out that it's only one can. *blinks innocently*

I've never had to walk for groceries, though I often did until the grocery store a few blocks from me closed. But I've always had the option of taking the car. Or bike. Which doesn't help capacity-wise, but is less likely to make your arms sore.

Awkward to have to do it all the time. Though I somewhat envy the living situation that makes it possible! I used to be able to walk to work and do nearly all my errands walking or on a bike- now I have a 30 minute- 1 hour highway commute. Which I need to go check the traffic report and then do.

[redbyrd-sgfic.livejournal.com]

You're not starting the brownies too late! You're performing a masterpiece of culinary timing, letting your friends enjoy the aroma of baking brownies, then getting to eat them hot from the pan. Which is by far the best way IMHO!

[redbyrd-sgfic.livejournal.com]

Bar cookies rock! I have a kind of sweet chewy bar cookie with coconut, your choice of chocolate chips, nuts, dates, raisins or all of the above- that is dead easy and always handy for these kinds of affairs.

Though for the one last weekend, I did cherry cobbler. Because- fruit plus biscuit mix plus throw it in the oven isn't a big deal either.