VALENTINE'S DAY CHOCOLATE FIX

By Emily Battle (Southern Ledger Writer)

Choose your vice: Four brownie recipes to help you get your Valentine’s Day chocolate fix

Chocolate is everywhere this month. From the red-wrapped mystery sweets in the drug store to the Food Network personalities telling you to go rub a pork loin with a cocoa-infused mix, you can pick from a large variety of ways to incorporate the supreme bean into your cuisine.

As for me, I’ll bypass a cold box of chocolates any day for a warm, gooey pan of brownies.

Brownies, in fact, were my gift of choice this past Christmas. I made them for my boss, for my hairdresser, for my mechanic and for the occasional friend who dropped by unexpected with a gift.

The large-scale brownie-baking operation gave me a chance to try out a variety of recipes, and to ponder the little variations that distinguish a gooey, fudgy pan from a more cake-like batch. I prefer the former, but several of my co-workers, I have learned, prefer the latter.

I’m not too proud to buy a box of brownie mix when I need to whip up a quick batch for an unanticipated event, but if you’re stirring up a bowl of brownie batter in search of pure chocolate enjoyment, it is well worth the extra time to make them from scratch.

First decide how you like your brownies. Do you like them cake-y or gooey? Do you like a uniform texture, or would you rather be surprised with oozing bits of melted chocolate? Do you want to use chocolate chips, unsweetened baker’s chocolate or cocoa powder?

To help you find one that meets your own taste, I offer my comments below on four different brownie recipes that I used while making my Christmas gifts.

There are three main criteria I used to evaluate them—taste, texture and batter (Because, let’s face it, why make brownies from scratch if you’re not going to sneak a spoonful or two of brownie batter?).

The first recipe I tried was the one that came with my Cuisinart food processor. I wanted to use this new kitchen toy, so I figured I’d give their brownie recipe a spin. Cuisinart calls them “Fudgy Brownies,” but I found them more cake-like than what I think of as a true brownie. The texture was pretty uniform, and if you like a good crust on top of your pan of brownies, you won’t find it with this recipe. The flavor was good, though, and the cakey-brownie-lovers in my office raved about these when I brought them in. The batter is thicker than what I usually look for in a brownie batter (i.e., you don’t really get to lick the bowl with this one).You don’t have to have a Cuisinart to make these, but you should use some kind of food processor, unless you want to grate the hard chocolate by hand. Also, make sure you get the butter nice and hot, or it won’t melt the chocolate when you mix it in.

Fudgy Brownies

Makes 32 brownies

6 oz. unsweetened chocolate

2 cups light brown sugar

2/3 cup butter, melted, hot

6 large eggs

2 tsp. vanilla extract

1 1/3 cups flour

½ tsp. salt

2 tsp. baking powder

1 cup pecan halves (I left these out.)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease two 8 x 8 –inch pans. Break up the chocolate into one-inch pieces and chop it up in the food processor with half of the sugar. Add the hot butter to this mixture, and process or stir until smooth. Add the rest of the sugar, eggs and vanilla. Mix. Add the dry ingredients and the nuts. Spread the batter in the pans. Bake about 20 minutes. Cool and cut into squares.

Next up was a recipe from Chapel Hill chef and restaurateur Mildred Council, known to most as Mama Dip. This recipe is from her book, “Mama Dip’s Kitchen,” published in 1999 by the University of North Carolina Press. This recipe starts with unsweetened chocolate, and the finished brownies are more chocolaty (and less sugary) than a lot of other recipes. The batter is thick and lighter in color than other batters. The finished product has a thick, light-brown crust that makes a great contrast with the gooey, darker brownie underneath. You taste all the ingredients you put into these brownies—the butter, salt, chocolate and sugar can all be detected as parts of the finished whole. This is not the recipe for the fudgy-brownie-seeking chocoholic, but it makes a very distinctive pan of brownies.

Chocolate Brownies

Makes 12-16 brownies

1 stick softened butter

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

2 squares unsweetened chocolate

½ cup all-purpose flour

½ tsp salt

½ tsp baking powder

1 tsp vanilla

1 cup chopped walnuts (once again, I left these out to keep the brownies all-chocolate)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Melt chocolate in microwave or double-boiler and let cool. Cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs until well mixed. Stir in chocolate. Sift together flour, salt and baking powder and add them to the wet ingredients. Mix well. Add the vanilla and stir. Stir in nuts. Pour into an 8x8 baking pan and bake for 25 minutes.

I found the next recipe on the back of a bag of King Arthur Flour. Billed as “the best fudge brownies ever,” I had to try them. If you can judge a brownie by the batter, then this one had me as soon as I mixed up the ingredients. It yields the dark, dense, chocolate-syrupy mix that you expect out of a brownie batter. The finished product is sweeter than Mama Dip’s, and more chocolate-heavy, since the recipe calls for both cocoa powder and chocolate chips. The texture lived up to the recipe’s name. These were dense—it was harder to work my knife through this pan than the others—but definitely more like fudge than the first two recipes, and with a shiny, dark-brown crust that made them visually appealing as well.

The Best Fudge Brownies Ever

Makes 2 dozen brownies

1 cup unsalted butter

2 ¼ cups sugar

1 ¼ cups cocoa

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder

1 tbsp vanilla extract

4 large eggs

1 ½ cups all purpose flour

2 cups chocolate chips (I used semi-sweet)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9x13-inch pan. Melt the butter in a saucepan over low heat. Add the sugar, and stir to combine. Return the mixture to the heat briefly until it’s hot, but not bubbling. You want the mixture to have a sheen to it, because this is where you get the shiny crust on top of the brownies. Transfer the mixture to a bowl. Stir in cocoa, salt, baking powder and vanilla. Add the eggs, beating until smooth. Then add the flour and chips, beating until well combined. Spoon batter into the pan. Bake 28 to 30 minutes, or until a cake tester comes out dry.

I found this last recipe in “Food to Die For,” a cookbook published as a fundraiser for the Old City Cemetery in Lynchburg, Va., but you can find it on the back of cans Ghirardelli’s sweet ground chocolate and cocoa. As someone who usually buys store-brand products, I have to admit that the Ghirardelli chocolate makes a huge difference. I used their semi-sweet chips instead of double chocolate. This will probably be the recipe I make most often. This particular baking cocoa is sweeter than most, but with an indulgent chocolate flavor. The batter was a lot like what I whipped up with the King Arthur recipe, but the finished product had a more uniform texture, as the chips seemed to melt into the rest of the brownies better. These brownies didn’t have quite as much crust on them as the others, but they did have a shiny top.

Ghirardelli Award Winning Brownies

Makes 16-20 brownies

2 eggs

¾ cups sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

½ cup melted butter

¾ cup Ghirardelli sweet ground chocolate and cocoa

2/3 cup unsifted flour

¼ tsp baking powder

¼ tsp salt

½ cup chopped walnuts

1 cup Ghirardelli double chocolate chips (I used semisweet)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Stir eggs with sugar and vanilla. Add melted butter. Sift ground chocolate with flour, baking powder and salt. Stir into egg mixture; add nuts. Stir in chips. Spread into a greased 8- or 9-inch square pan. Cook for 20 to 30 minutes.

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Emily Battle is a professional journalist who lives in Virginia. She grew up in North Carolina cheering for the Tar Heels before attending college at UNC in Chapel Hill. Contact her at bylime@hotmail.com.

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