Barbara Bretton: Wish You Were Here

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World's Best Brownies - Guaranteed!

Once upon a time I thought Katharine Hepburn's brownie recipe was the world's best . . . until I found Dinah Shore's brownie recipe in Someone's Cookin' With Dinah and I made double batches of that recipe every Christmas Eve (have you ever had warm, fresh from the oven brownies topped with vanilla ice cream??) for many, many years.

Well, move over, Dinah. Nigella Lawson, the ultimate Domestic Goddess and Cookbook Author Extraordinaire, has outdone them both.

Please, please try these brownies. I implore you to stop whatever you're doing, whip out the chocolate, the sugar, the eggs and vanilla, and whip this up right NOW. I promise you'll be so grateful to me that you'll put me in your will. And to make it even better, these are the easiest brownies you'll ever make. You didn't even need to plug in your mixer.

Happy Holidays!

Ingredients:

13 ounces bittersweet chocolate (or unsweetened; it's up to you) (I use Scharfenberger bittersweet, 70%; it's pricey but worth every cent)
1 1/2 cups white sugar
1 T vanilla
6 eggs
1 1/2 C flour
1 t salt
1 2/3 C butter

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and prepare a 13 X 9 X 2 1/2 inch pan. (I just spray it with Baker's Joy or something similar. You could also line it with parchment paper.)

Find a good-sized, heavy bottom sauce pan. Slowly and carefully melt the butter and chocolate. Keep your eye on it! Don't let it get too hot. Definitely don't let it burn. While this is slowly happening, break your eggs into a large mixing bowl. Add vanilla and sugar. Whisk until frothy and well-combined. Set aside the flour.

Once the butter and chocolate are melted, move the pan from the heat and let it cool slightly. (You don't want the eggs to scramble when you add them.) When the chocolate mixture is only lukewarm, slowly beat in the eggs/vanilla/sugar mixture with a wire whisk. Mix until well-combined. Now slowly beat in the flour and salt until everything is blended. Feel free to add walnuts or pecans or macadamia nuts at this point, if you'd like.

Pour mixture into prepared pan and bake for 25 minutes or so. Only you know if you like your brownies dryish and cakelike or all melted and squishy in the middle. 25 minutes at 350 degrees gives you a nice middle-ground that I like. But it's all up to you!

Enjoy with a big scoop of vanilla ice cream and think of me.

(With a big thank you to Nigella Lawson for the original recipe.)