Maida's Palm Beach Brownies
A brownie with a thick crust and fudgy center
Servings 24 brownies
Cost 5
Ingredients
- 8 oz unsalted butter (230 grams)
- 8 oz unsweetened chocolate (230 grams)
- 5 large eggs
- 2 tsp pure vanilla extract
- ½ tsp almond extract optional
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 4 teaspoons instant espresso powder
- 3 ¾ cup granulated sugar (730 to 750)
- 1 ⅔ cup unbleached all purpose flour, sift after measuring
- 2 cups walnuts toasted and broken into pieces (I omitted)
Instructions
- Adjust an oven rack one-third up from the bottom and preheat oven to 425 degrees. Line a 9x13x2-inch metal pan with nonstick foil or parchment paper.
- Melt the butter in a heavy saucepan. When almost melted, reduce heat to low and add chocolate. Stir until chocolate is very soft, then remove from heat and let chocolate melt in the residual heat of the butter.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the eggs with the vanilla and almond extracts, salt, espresso and sugar at high speed for 10 minutes. On low speed, add the chocolate mixture and beat only until mixed. Remove the bowl from the mixer and stir in the flour and the nuts.
- Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Bake for 35 minutes, reversing the pan from front to back once to ensure even baking (Maida covers her brownies loosely with foil halfway through to prevent burning, but I didn't). At the end of 35 minutes, the brownies will have a firm crust, but when tested with a toothpick will appear underbaked. Take them out anyway.
- Remove the pan from the oven and let stand until cool. Invert the brownies onto a cookie sheet and remove the foil. Cover with length of waxed paper and another cookie sheet..invert again. This cake is best covered and refrigerated for a few hours or overnight before it is cut into bars.
Notes
I baked half of the recipe in an 8x8 inch metal pan and omitted the walnuts. Mine were done in about 22 minutes. I plunged the hot pan in ice water to quick-cool for about 20 minutes, then transferred the brownies to the freezer for an hour or so, then put them in the refrigerator. The brownies were excellent If you make the full version, use a metal pan or reduce the heat by 25 degrees F. You definitely do not want to bake these at 425 in a glass dish!
