There's no way I could skip Tuesdays with Dorie this week. I mean, just look at that picture up there. And there wasn't even a picture of this in the book to entice me, either. I just read the recipe - "Rick Katz's Brownies for Julia" - chosen by Tanya of Chocolatechic, and immediately decided the only problem with the recipe was that it needed to be doubled.
Easily accomplished! My only adjustments/changes to the recipe were based on what I had on hand, chocolate-wise. The recipe calls for 4 oz unsweetened chocolate and 2 oz bittersweet. I had 6 oz unsweetened, and since I was doubling the recipe, I needed 8. So I ended up using the 6 oz of unsweetened and 6 (instead of 4) oz of semisweet (becasue I didn't have bittersweet). Got all that? Good. There's a quiz later. Not really.
I opted to use metal pans instead of the pyrex mentioned in the recipe, and I lined them with parchment so I could just lift out the finished brownies rather than cut them in the pan and then dig around with a thin spatula to try to pry out the first one or two without mangling them.
Then I went about assembling the ingredients.
That's the vanilla in the purple plastic wine glass, by the way. Not amoxicilin.
Then I set up my version of a double boiler (hi, Ralph!) on the stove in order to melt the butter and chocolate.
Here's my water as it comes to a simmer.
Let the melting begin....
Lovely.
Time to add some sugar.
And the vanilla. Hm. I'm thinking I should invest in a set of children's dish sets to use as mise en place vessels. Look at the pretty color!
Done. With that part.
Moving along...time to mix eggs and more sugar.
My assistant pours the eggs into the bowl of my mixer.
Her nail polish is chipping.
Such a busy little sous chef.
Too busy for a manicure.
Yeah. I have no idea who she is sometimes.
Now we add about half of the egg/sugar mixture to the melted choclate in the big bowl.
And then in goes the rest of the egg/sugar mixture after it's been whipped to a froth.
And then I hand over the camera to my able little assistant, and she shoots while I fold.
She was doing such a great job that I let her keep taking pictures while I sprinkled on the flour and folded that in.
Thanks, Julia!
I divided the batter between my two pans (one is 10 x 10, the other is 8 x 8) and popped them into the oven.
And I handed over the spatula and bowl to my little assistant so she could begin ... um... cleaning them up.
The larger pan took about half an hour, the smaller pan (which was filled a bit deeper) took a little longer.
After they'd cooled a bit, I lifted the brownies out of the pans and set them back on the cooling racks for a while longer.
And when they were cool enough to slice, I cut them up.
Amazingly once I started slicing, small children spilled out of the woodwork, demanding a taste.
Please excuse the strange, dreamy look...he loves choclate.
After I shooed the vultures from the kitchen, I finished cutting. Most were in little rectangles.
And I had to cut out some non-rectangles, too.
These are really yummy, moist, fudgy, addictive little brownies. Bill said he'd never had anything like them. Don't believe him? Make some for yourself and see. Tanya's posted the recipe here, or you can turn to page 91 in Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home to Yours. And be sure to see what the other TWD bakers had to say about them!
Oh, and by the way, the "for Julia" in the name of these brownies? That would be Julia Child. Not, you know, my Julia. Just in case you were wondering.
