Baking Challenge 2: Brownies from Scratch

Hello friends!

Happy Valentine's Day! Here's a gift for you all!

For Valentine's Day, I decided to try making brownies from scratch! I found a great recipe on the King Arthur Flour Facebook page and also a guide to choosing the right kind of cocoa.

I really love reading their posts. They are incredibly informative and I have not been disappointed by any of their recipes yet!

Anyway, here is the original recipe I followed and the ABCs of cocoa post.

King Arthur Flour Brownie Recipe

King Arthur Flour's ABCs of Cocoa

Basically, I learned that depending on if the recipe calls for baking soda or baking powder, determines if we should use Dutch-processed cocoa powder or natural cocoa powder. It has everything to do with neutralizing the soapy taste that can result in baking with baking soda! Since the brownie recipe I used for this uses baking powder and not baking soda, I didn't need to be concerned about neutralizing the soapy flavor, so Dutch-processed cocoa is used.

Ok, so lets see how I did!

The first step was to grease a 9x13 pan. I, of course, neglected to remember getting some cooking spray (like Pam), so I did the next best thing. Here's a Kitchen Tip!

When you're like me and consistently forget the cooking spray, butter and flour (for baking) are you friends. Grease the baking dish with butter and coat with a light dusting of flour! The cool thing about this method is, it also makes the edges of whatever you're baking have a slight crunch and extra buttery flavor. I enjoy doing this technique, but it's mainly only for baking things like cake and brownies. :3 Either way, if you don't like the crunchy edges, lightly rub the pan with some olive oil. I find this also works pretty well!

Ok, so first things first, I always like to lay out my ingredients so I know I have everything I need before I get super into measuring and combining everything and then finding out I'm missing something.

Next, I measure out everything that can be measured out, such as dry ingredients and wet ingredients, and put them into bowls so I can just dump and keep working without stopping to measure out stuff.

I love using the golden yolk, free range eggs. They look so sunny and pretty, and give a nice color to whatever I'm making. It's probably not necessary, but I'd like to think they're healthier. Lol.




This recipe is interesting because it called for me to melt the butter and combine it with the sugar before adding it to the egg and cocoa mixture. I never had a recipe have me do this before, and for some reason, my brain went to making a double boiler with the butter and sugar for no good reason... I didn't need to do this, I was thinking I would need to melt the chocolate chips into this mixture, but that was not at all the case. Hahaha.

Anyway, I followed the recipe pretty closely, but I used Bensdorp Dutch-process cocoa instead of double-Dutch processed cocoa because I couldn't find double-Dutch processed cocoa.

I wanted a really intense dark chocolate flavor, so I substituted 1 cup of the semi-sweet chocolate chips with 70% dark chocolate chips. Some recipes say the chocolate chips are optional (and if you do add chocolate chips, the chocolate wafers are probably a better option since they melt better... With the chips, I got chunks of un-melted chips here and there, but I liked the gooey chocolate surprise when biting into the brownies, so it worked for me.), but King Arthur's blog said that if you want that shiny-topped brownie, adding in the chocolate chips will give you that glossy finish. I, of course, want that shiny top!

Ok, so after I combined all the ingredients, here's where I deviated a bit more from the recipe.

One of the reasons I wanted to make it super dark chocolate flavor is because I wanted to add in some butterscotch chips I had made earlier and didn't want the brownies to be too sweet.

These butterscotch chips were originally used to make oatmeal butterscotch cookies, but they kind of melted a lot when making the cookies and the cookies ended up turning into more of a lace cookie than traditional oatmeal cookies... So I figured this would be a better use of the chips!

The recipe for the butterscotch chips can be found here. If you have the time to make these, I definitely recommend it!

I added in about 1/2 cup of butterscotch chips and added a handful to the top of the brownies once I spread the mixture into the pan.

I also added 1/2cup of chopped walnuts. I love nuts in my brownies because of the crunch they give. These are all optional addons, but man... These brownies are soooo good!!!

The batter was super thick! I had to spread it into the pan instead of just letting it pour into the baking pan. I was a bit worried they wouldn't cook, and I definitely needed to add about 15 minutes of extra bake time (possibly because of the butterscotch chips), but...

   

Ok, here's the TLDR version for you people who don't have time to deal with my wordiness!

TLDR Version:

• Used Bensdrop Dutch-processed cocoa.
• Used 1 cup bittersweet chocolate chips and 1 cup 70% dark chocolate chips (Guittard).
• Added in 1/2 cup homemade butterscotch chips after batter was combined.
• Added in 1/2 cup chopped walnuts.
• Adjusted cook time from 30 minutes to 45 minutes.

The brownies came out amazingly well. :D Not to toot my own horn, but these might be some of the best brownies I have ever had! The edges were slightly crunchy, while the inside was still moist, and even though it probably isn't desirable to have the half-melted chocolate chips in there, they added an extra level of gooey goodness akin to a molten lava cake, but inside the brownies. Happy surprise!

 

I hope these brownies inspire your Valentine's day cooking adventures of your own! Again, if there is anything you want to ask, recommendations, etc, please feel free to leave a comment! Happy baking!