Mmm.. Brownies! They're among the first things that got me interested in baking as a kid. I was a sucker for brownies, but the only problem was that I could ever really get the real, authentic brownies at my school's bake sale. And the situation got no better as I got older. By the time I got old enough to trust myself with kitchen appliances and an oven, I was only left with the memory of how good the real American brownies tasted like. My only options were to test every possible version of brownies in Finland, or learn to make them myself. Only problem was, since I hadn't quite learned to read recipes using the metric system yet, it wasn't exactly easy to use recipes from the US. So there were multiple attempts before getting to this result. Some had waaay too much sugar and butter, other ones turned out to be more like a cake base than anything resembling brownie. But after many years and many more batches of failed brownies (luckily I have people around me willing to eat anything with chocolate, butter and sugar).
Luckily some course of life landed me spending some time in Boston. So suddenly I had my hands on the proper equipment to start trying out those American brownie recipes. And oh, how many batches did I make. I used a ton of different recipes as inspiration and kept testing and editing with each batch. Maybe a few more than I needed to, because you know.. sometimes you just get a craving for a piece of brownie with a scoop of ice cream or a glass of cold milk. But here it is, this is what I ended up with. Now I can't say I will never tweak this recipe (mainly because it's a perfect way to justify baking a brownie in the middle of the night, because hey, it's in the name of research) but I have been sticking to this version for a while now. And honestly, lacking a better excuse for baking brownies has not stopped me from making and then eating nearly entire batch of these more often than I would like to admit. Now go ahead, you be the judge of whether these meet your brownie standards and let me know what you think!
Classic American Brownie
Servings: 12-16 pieces
Ingredients:
50g. butter
1 dl sugar
200g. dark chocolate
½ dl milk
2 eggs
¾ tsp vanilla extract
1 ½ dl flour
1 tbsp cocoa
¼ tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
1. Preheat oven to 175C and butter a square pan.
2. Melt the butter in a pot on medium heat and add in the sugar. Keep on the heat for about 1 minute.
3. Take the pot off the heat and add in the chocolate. Mix the chocolate in the pot until fully melted.
4. Add in the milk and vanilla extract while gently mixing. Add in the eggs and whisk quickly but gently.
5. Mix the dry ingredients together and combine with the first mixture by slowly turning the mixture using a licker.
6. Pour the mixture into the square pan and place in the middle section of the oven. Bake for about 18-20 minutes. Don’t be afraid of the center being raw, the brownie will settle once it cools down.
