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Recipe: Midnight Brownies
By estar | March 18, 2007
I confess - I have an unhealthy obssession with baking in the wee hours of the morning. Maybe it’s something programmed in a baker’s genes - “Wake up! It’s 3am. Time to bake.” My regular job operates during the more sane working hours though, so it’s only on rare occasion that I can yield to my baker’s instincts. And on this particular occasion, I succumbed to my chocolate cravings, and baked up a batch of ‘Midnight Brownies’.
This is a versatile, basic one-bowl recipe that adapts well to additions of almost anything. You can throw in nuts, chocolate syrup, liqueurs (try rum, Baileys or Grand Marnier), marshmallows and your brownies will still turn out perfect - slightly crusty edges, with a moist centre - provided you follow this one cardinal rule: DO NOT OVERBAKE!
Brownies are funny things. You can totally mess up the proportions, but they will somehow still work. The variations just result in either a chewy or fudgey brownie, or somewhere in between. But once you overbake them, they become a dry, inedible mess. For this recipe, do not EVER exceed 25min in the oven. The brownies will continue to cook while cooling.
Midnight Brownies (makes one 8×8in pan)
3/4 cup plain flour
2 tbsp cocoa
1/2 cup salted butter
100g dark chocolate, roughly chopped
1 cup caster sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup sour cream (Optional)
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 175°C and line an 8×8in pan with buttered baking paper.
2. Melt the butter, chocolate and sugar together in a large, dry bowl. The simplest way is to nuke the mixture in the microwave and stir it at 30-second intervals. Alternatively, the traditional melting method calls for the bowl to be suspended over a pot of simmering water (called a ‘double boiler’). This works too, as long as you don’t get any water in the bowl. A single drop can seize (harden) the chocolate into a solid mess. Once melted, leave to cool. You will still see sugar crystals.
3. Stir in the eggs, vanilla extract and sour cream, if using.
4. Stir in flour and cocoa.
5. Spread into prepared pan and bake for exactly 25min.
6. Remove from oven and leave to cool in pan for at least 20min before cutting (Yes, I know it’s hard to wait that long…). Enjoy warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream!
In the VERY unlikely event that you have leftovers (or when I’m trying to keep Daniel on his diet), you can freeze them. When a chocolate craving hits, nuke the frozen brownies in the microwave for 30 seconds, and they’ll still taste fresh!