Rick Katz's Brownies for Julia

I know, I know...I've been bad. I said in my last post that I was going to try to not bake anything until Valentine's Day. But, this week's recipe for the TWDers was this fabulous brownie recipe that sounded like the exact type of brownie I love: ooey, gooey, and barely set. Yum! Upon looking at the recipe, I found out that it was basically the same brownie recipe as one that's been sitting on my To Try list for a while. Plus, all of my classes have been canceled this week and it's been a wintery wasteland outside like I've mentioned in my previous posts, so even though I'm not a member of Tuesdays with Dorie, these brownies begged me to make them, honestly! Ha ha. I think I'll still end up making the recipe I wanted to make for Valentine's Day. That is, if I can ever get out and get the ingredients with all this snow! I might just scale down the recipe and make individual portions. As to what recipe I have in mind, you'll have to wait until Valentine's Day to find out.

Like I was saying, this recipe is amazingly ooey and gooey, probably the most gooey brownies I've ever made! A lot of members of TWD said that they found a problem with that, and most baked their brownies a lot longer or just baked them in a larger pan in order to compensate. But I fully believe that a cooked-all-the-way-through brownie is an absolute crime! I saw one comment on the same recipe labeled "Best Ever Brownies" where the woman actually baked these things until a toothpick came out clean and I just about died!! So if you're looking for a really cakey recipe, this one is certainly not for you! But if you're like me and love an absolute sinful, chocolately, gooey, melt-your-mouth brownie, this one's a keeper! I'm not going to share the recipe here, so please go on over to the blog Chocolatechic for the brownie recipe. But I will share some photos of the baking process.

Melting the butter and chocolate. And there's a lot of it in this recipe! If you're looking to get on a diet, or looking for a lighter recipe, turn away now, ha ha!

An interesting thing about this recipe is that you stir in half of the sugar/egg mixture into the melted chocolate and butter and then whip the other half until the eggs have gotten really light and doubled in volume. I actually went through the same process of whipping the eggs for the chocolate espresso cookies in my second post, which also came out as more like a brownie batter than a cookie dough. Interesting!

The rest of the brownies. The recipe, I believe, calls for you to bake the brownies for 25-30 minutes. I baked for 30 and they were nice and gooey. I got impatient and cut a piece after only about 30 minutes of cooling, so you can see how the recipe really oozes. After I ate my piece, I placed these brownies in the refrigerator to set up a little more. They'll still be super gooey, but they won't ooze like how you see in the picture.

A close up of my slice. Yum! You can also see that the brownies have a nice, crackly, crispy top on them which is nice paired with the melt-in-your mouth gooey-ness. If you absolutely insist that you want your brownies to be more firm and you really want to try this recipe, I'd suggest baking your brownies upwards of 35-4o minutes or even adding about another 1/2 cup of flour to them. Just remember to watch them.

So try these brownies! They really are excellent, and I think I'll be using this as my go to recipe from now on! Until Valentine's Day!