Supremely Fudgy Brownies

Whoever came up with Brownies is truly a genious. How could anyone possibly resist this tempting rich piece of chocolate goodness? Brownies come in different texture. There is the cakey version, the fudgy version and the cross between the fudgy and cake-like. I like my brownies to be fudgy and gooey most of the time. When paired with ice-cream, I will prefer it to be cake-like but warm and very moist, almost slightly gooey.

 

This time round, I attempted my first recipe from Lisa Yockelson's Chocolate Chocolate. The book comes with a pretty hefty price of  78 SGD. Luckily I picked it up as a book bargain at Harris at just 30 bucks. As with other brownie recipes, this one was easy to execute, except that the recipe called for unsweetened chocolate. Unsweetened chocolate is one ingredient that is hard to come by and most supermarkets do not carry it.

I have only come across 2 brands of unsweetened chocolate so far - Baker's unsweetened chocolate and Hershey's unsweetened chocolate. I used the earlier as it was recommended by the book as one that is of superior quality. Unsweetened chocolate bars can be found in Cold storage, Ntuc fairprice extra outlets and Sheng Shiong.

As the name suggests, the brownies turned out dense and fudgy with a crunchy crust, exactly like the ones in the book. I have tried several different brownie recipes and this recipe is definitely one of the better ones.

Supremely fudgy brownies ( recipe adapted from Lisa Yockelson's Chocolate Chocolate )
Equipment: 9 inch square pan

Ingredients:
130g plain flour
30g cake flour
2 tbs akalized cocoa powder ( Hershey's cocoa is not akalized)
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp salt
225g unsalted butter, melted and cooled
120g unsweentened chocolate, melted and cooled ( 4 individually wrapped squares)
4 eggs, 60g each
280g granulated sugar (I cut down on 120g of sugar on my 2nd attempt)
1 1/2tsp vanilla extract

Method:
1) Preheat oven to 160 degrees C.
2) Sift all dry ingredients into a large bowl and whisk them together to distribute evenly.
3) Mix melted butter and melted chocolate until well combined.
4) Whisk eggs to combine egg whites and yolks, about 30 seconds. Add in sugar and whisk another 30 seconds.
5) Add the vanilla extract and chocolate butter mixture to the egg-sugar mixture. Stir till combined
6) Add in combined dry ingredients and stir to form a batter. The final batter is smooth and gooey, possibly with some air bubbles.
7) Bake at 160 degrees C for 25 to 35 minutes. If the middle part is still shiny and lava like whereas the perimeter is dull and dry, return it to the oven and bake a further 5 minutes.The colour of the crust should be uniformly dull and the middle part should be slightly squidy as compared to the sides which have a firmer feel.
8) Allow the brownie to cool in the pan, for about 2 to 3 hours before refrigerating for 1 hour.