Carson Bakes: Basic Brownies
Hey, friends! It’s been a minute. Or a couple of years. No matter. What’s important here is that I’m actually posting! Only took a pandemic and a quarantine to make it happen. Not what I would’ve planned, but I don’t get to make these decisions.
I’ve had a blog post in my drafts for months but didn’t really even like the recipe I was planning to share and what I’d written felt more like a diary entry than a food blog post. So I didn’t post it and it got all sad and dusty.
Over the weekend when I jokingly mentioned this being the time to get back to the blog, Ben encouraged me to just start posting. So here we go. Bear with me! It will most certainly be a little rocky as I find my footing again. The pics I thought I’d loaded on to my computer are somehow not there, and of course I cleared my memory card after loading them. So it’s iphone photos for you this time!
When we found out that school would be out for weeks I asked the kids what they’d like to do, what they’d like to make, what they’d like to learn, etc. Carson said he’d like to learn how to make brownies from scratch instead of from a box, so we started looking at cookbooks.
We chose this recipe from America’s Test Kitchen Family Cookbook as our basic starting point. Carson wanted to add all kinds of things, but I convinced him that a basic brownie was the best place to begin.
Carson helped every step of the way with this, and I think he could’ve done most of it on his own except for chopping the chocolate. We got to talk about basic baking techniques; proper measuring, lining a pan with foil, greasing the foil, melting stuff in the microwave without burning it, slowly stirring in flour and checking for doneness. We also got to practice cracking eggs…there was one casualty. Thankfully I kept my cool. As many of you know, eggs are not the easiest thing to come by right now! I am really being picky about what we bake next since I only have a dozen at the moment. What I wouldn’t give to have a few chickens right now!
These baked up nicely. They were dense and sturdy, not at all gooey and not actually all that fudgy. They seemed more cakey to me. We did bake them on the longer side of the suggested time so that was probably why. Warm from the pan with a little ice cream is how we liked these best.
We’ll be exploring more brownie recipes and if I can let go of some of my control you’ll be seeing some of Carson’s creative brownie ideas soon!
Stay safe everyone! Hug your family if you can, pray for our world, and go bake something.
Ultimate Fudgy Brownies
From America’s Test Kitchen Family Cookbook
Ingredients
- 5 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped
- 2 ounces unsweetened chocolate, chopped
- 1 stick of butter (8 tablespoons)
- 3 tablespoons cocoa powder
- 1 1/4 cups sugar
- 3 eggs
- 2 teaspoons vanilla
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup flour
Directions
- Preheat oven to 350F.
- Line an 8 inch square pan with foil, leaving overhang on all sides, spray with nonstick cooking spray or grease with shortening.
- Combine chocolates, butter and cocoa in a microwave safe bowl. Microwave on high power in 30 second increments, stirring well in between, until thoroughly melted.
- Whisk together eggs, sugar and vanilla in a large bowl.
- Add in chocolate mixture and whisk to combine.
- Stir in flour and salt until just combined.
- Spread into prepared pan and bake for 30-40 minutes or until toothpick comes out with loose crumbs attached.
- Cool in pan for an hour, remove using the foil, cut and serve.