Brownies

I was in one of my mid-week baking moods and felt in need of a chocolate fix.

Furthermore I wasn't about to spend more than an hour in the kitchen stirring and washing dishes. I needed a quick and easy recipe. Thus it was by chance that I stumbled upon this brownie recipe whilst browsing through Helene of Tartelette archieved posts. I decided this was the one!

I already had all the ingredients either sitting in the pantry cupboard or in the refrigerator. Furthermore I had another 4 pieces of 250g of butter which had yet to be consumed and with an expiration date of end June.

You'll probably wondering why I have so much butter sitting in my fridge ... is there a butter shortage due to the fuel crisis??? You wouldn't believe this but I had chanced upon a butter sale through a local auction site. The seller was selling 10 pieces of 250g of french unsalted butter for $1 each - so I ended up buying all 10 pieces. It was a steal going for 1/3 of it's usual retail price!

I'm usually skepticle about brownie recipes as those that I had tried in the past tended to be a bit dry and heavy. Something like those that comes out of a cake mix box. This recipe was the opposite, moist and extremely good. If you are a chocolate fan and looking to try something without raising too much of a sweat, this is just right up your alley. I added in some chopped walnuts just for the extra crunch and texture. In addition I also reduced on the sugar and used just slightly more than 3/4 cup. And guess what, I was done within one hour and this included baking time as well. Definitely a "must try" again recipe!

Katherine Hepburn Brownies

Ingredients:

4 oz bittersweet chocolate (113g)
2 tsp ground coffee (or you could use instant coffee)
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1/4 lb unsalted butter (4 oz or 113g)
1 cup Sugar
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 ts Vanilla extract
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 ts salt

Method:

1) Preheat the oven to 325 F (or 162 C).

2) Butter an 8-inch square baking pan.

3) In a heavy saucepan, melt the chocolate with the butter over low heat, stirring until completely melted. Remove from the heat and stir in the sugar, coffee, cocoa powder and cinnamon .

4) Add the eggs and vanilla and whisk well.

5) Stir in the flour and salt and mix well.

6) Spoon the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 40 minutes.