Moist Nutty Chocolate Brownies
By: Køkken69
Published: Thursday, February 25, 2010 - 4:26pm

Ingredients




145 grams Bitter sweet chocolate, preferably Valrohna Caribe. (I used Tainori)
260 grams Unsalted butter
4 Large Eggs
250 grams Sugar
140 grams All purpose flour
145 grams Pecans or walnuts, lightly toasted and very coarsely chopped

Preparation

1 Preheat oven to 180C. Prepare a 24x 30cm baking tray. Line bottom with a piece of parchment paper, butter the paper and dust the inside of the pan with flour. 2 Melt chocolate in microwave. Cool down to 45C before use. 3 In a bowl, cream butter with rubber spatula. Consistency of butter should be smooth and creamy but not airy. Stir in chocolate, egg (lightly beaten), sugar followed by flour and nuts. 4 Pour batter into baking tray and smoothen surface with spatula. 5 Bake for 19- 22mins; at this point the top of the cake will be dry but a knife inserted in the center will come out wet.  Transfer the pan to a cooling rack and allow brownies to cool.

About


So why have I chosen to bake brownies then? ... because I have a dinner gathering coming up and my friends seem to like brownies.... and because Dorie Greespan had written that this recipe is a prime example of Brownies of the sublime variety. Made with good quality bitter sweet chocolate, an abundance of butter and generously studded with nuts - they are baked to just set at the surface;" the center of the brownie remains moist - very moist."  I got mesmerised by her description and decided to give it a try. 
It was easy enough for I have loads of good quality chocolate in my fridge, blocks of French butter in my freezer and some macadamia nuts from a previous bake. These turned out to be short so I had to top up with some pistachio nuts in my chiller. 
I did a small trial batch which yielded about 9 squares. I am not quite happy wth the way they look. I have a feeling I might have overaerated when I creamed the butter for it did not turn out as compact as the photo in the cook book. And even though I had baked as instructed at 180C x 20mins, the center still seems a little gooey - unsure if this is actually the Very Moist sublime quality as depicted by Dorie Greenspan. 
Verdict? ... certainly moist and delightful. Sumblime? Not really... at least I have not achieved it yet.