Double Chocolate Brownies a la Kara via Martha

Double Chocolate Brownies a la Kara via Martha

September 5, 2008, 8:26 pm
Filed under: Cooking

The brownies were a go.  It took a while to post because I was picture happy when I tried it.  I used the recipe for Double Chocolate Brownies from Martha Stewart.  I own and use her “New Classics” cookbook, but her website is such a handy bit of information for recipes.  I especially like to use it, when I have an odd ingredient that I need ideas for.  It’s so simple to do a search on said ingredient and be given a list of recipes that include it.  This is how I first made Kale and Prosciutto Ravioli when Kale arrived in our food share.  But now on to dessert.

 

Start with an 8 X 8 pan.  Grease the inside with butter, then lay in aluminum foil with an overhang and grease that too.  Yes, I don’t always understand the need to grease and regrease.  Seems like, why shouldn’t you just use the pan??  But I like to follow a recipe the first time thru as directed.  And it was very easy to get the brownie out to cool after it was cooked by using the foil.  My mother could never be bothered by any of these steps growing up, so they have seemed a little foreign to me.

Chocolate/Butter Mixture

 Next prepare the Chocolate/Butter/Cocoa mixture. 

I used a metal bowl that was about 8 inches diameter.  It’s what I chose to be qualified as “heatproof” which is a term I think needs some attention in the baking world.  Initially I think heatproof = doesn’t heat up.  I am a scientist by training.  You’ll see what I mean in a minute.  I would initially call Styrofoam a heatproof material.  You put a hot liquid in it, and it doesn’t really conduct heat very well.  Your hand stays cool, your coffee stays hot.  Therefore “heatproof”.  However if you choose a Styrofoam bowl for this step you would be very sorry.  Heatproof in the baking world seems to mean, capable of easily conducting heat without damaging said container.  Like making sure you don’t use a plastic bowl that won’t last if it gets to hot.  This is the baking world version of heatproof.  If I ever write a cookbook I vow to never use the term heatproof.  I will ask you to use a metal bowl, or something that won’t melt.  As heatproof just baffles and confuse me.

Mixer Setup 1

I still have not mastered the timing element of cooking, so rather than start to melt the chocolate first, I added all the ingredients to the mixer before I moved over to the stove.  This way, I could ensure the chocolate didn’t cool too much before the sugar/eggs/vanilla mixture was ready.

Melting Chocolate

Part of the trick of Melting the Chocolate seems to be ensuring that you have the right amount of water in your pot.  I like to fill it with just enough water such that the metal bowl I put on top of the pot will float, but if i press the bowl down the water won’t spill out of the pot.  You can check this before you even begin to simmer the water or if you find you have too much water once you’ve started pour some out of the bowl.  As the mixture begins to melt, you want to stir and remove any lumps.  This is where you’ll learn how fine you need to chop the chocolate pieces.  The finer you make them the quicker this step will be.  But it is a lot more work to chop the chocolate than it is to melt it, so you have to find your happy medium.

Whipping Sugar Eggs and Vanilla

After the chocolate was melted I whipped the preplaced sugar, eggs and vanilla.  They came together to form the “pale” mixture as Martha’s recipe described.  The Stand mixer is truly amazing.

Whipping in melted Chocolate

Adding in the melted chocolate is simple.  I love the middle picture where you can see the initial mixing of the sugar and eggs with the chocolate.  Feels like the mixing of paint, only non-toxic, 🙂 

Whipping in dry ingredients

Adding the dry ingredients caused flour to fly out of the bowl and up onto everything.  I need to buy a shield for the mixer.  I had the same problem while making buttercream frosting.  Anywhoozle, it doesn’t take long to incorporate all of the dry fixings.

Bake and Cool

Pour the batter into your pre-buttered pan, bake it and cool it.

Eat a la Mode

EAT EAT EAT!!!! With a scoop of icecream and a sprinkling of cocoa powder this Double Chocolate Brownie treat is ready for consumption.

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