The Best Brownies + Giveaway!

Happy Friday!

It’s been a doozy of a week on here. Lots of giveaways with some of my favorite things and celebrating 3 years of blogging with you guys.

To say thanks, I brought brownies.

I have tried a. lot. of brownie recipes, and I usually end up feeling like Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

These ones are too cakey, those weren’t rich enough, these didn’t have the brownie crust that makes them a brownie.

Just like with cookies, we have brownie rules in this house.

1. They must – Must! – be fudgy rather than cakey. If we wanted cakey, I would just bake a cake.

2. They must – Must!- call for unsweetened baking chocolate or cocoa. No semi-sweet or milk chocolate here, unless it’s cut with unsweetened. That’s how you get the deep, rich cocoa flavor.

3. There cannot – and I repeat, Cannot – be frosting. Brownies + frosting = cake, not a brownie.

Do you have certain food rules, too, or are we just crazy?

Either way, I think I’ve finally come up with the perfect, classic brownie recipe. You can add walnuts or chocolate chips or pretzels or whatever other crazy things you want in your brownies. But first – just makes these plain.

They are deep and rich and dense and fudgy and have that crispy crunch of a crust on the top.

Fantastic warm after dinner with a glass of milk and eaten cold with a fork out of the pan for an afternoon snack. I did my research.

The Best Classic Brownies

Makes: 12-16 brownies

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup brewed coffee
• 4 and 1/2 squares unsweetened baking chocolate
• 1 and 1/2 sticks butter
• 1 and 3/4 cups sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 3 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 cup whole wheat pastry flour

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees.
2. Grease an 8×8 baking dish.
3. Place the coffee, chocolate, and butter in a microwaveable bowl. Heat on high for 3-4 minutes, stirring after each minute, until the butter and chocolate are melted.
4. Let the butter mixture sit and cool for 5 minutes.
5. Stir the sugar and salt into the butter mixture.
6. Whisk eggs into the mix, one at a time, until the eggs are completely combined.
7. Stir in the vanilla and flour until the flour is incorporated.
8. Pour the batter into the pan and bake at 300 degrees for 50-55 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean.

To finish out my celebration week, I’ve got another giveaway for you!

I’ve got this sweet KitchenAid 3 Speed Hand Blender – you can use it as an immersion blender, or a whisk, or a mini food-processor. Whisk, chop, whip, blend, puree, crush, do it all.

It’s like the McGyver of small appliances.

The chopper and blender jar are BPA-free, and the attachments are dishwasher safe. Bonus!

To Enter:

Answer this question: What would you make first if you won this 3-speed blender?

If I had one, I would definitely make some homemade nut butter. I need a food processor so bad!

For an extra entry:

Tweet about the giveaway (using @KitchenAidUSA) and let me know you did!

I’ll pick the winner on Thursday – good luck!

http://www.branappetit.com/

Read more at Bran Appetit