serious brownies

chocolate loves and caffeine addicts can unite with this coffee brownie with a khula glaze. my mom first made these brownies years ago from the two hot tamales cookbook, and to this day its still one of my favorite brownie recipes! i don't have the cookbook, but some googling always gets me the recipe. this is not a healthy, low-fat, low-cal brownie. lots of butter and sugar (as it should be)!

ingredients:

5 oz unsweetened chocolate, coarsely chopped

2 & 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, softened

3 tablespoons finely ground espresso beans - i just used whatever the dark roast coffee i had in the house already and ground it as fine as my grinder could grind

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 & 1/2 cups sugar

5 large eggs 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 1 &

1/4 cup all-purpose flour

1 cup pecans, coarsely chopped - i don't like nuts with my chocolate so i skipped the pecans

glaze: 

1 tablespoon unsalted butter, softened

1/4 cup kahlua or instant coffee

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup powdered sugar

tools:

9x12" baking pan - i only had a 9x13" glass baking pan

double boiler - don't have one?  i don't either, just use a glass bowl that fits in a pot

knife

wooden spoon

rubber spatula

parchment paper

step 1: gather & prepare your ingredients.  take out the butter first so it will have time to soften, then chop up the chocolate.  pre-heat the oven to 325 degrees F, you can wait a few steps to pre-heat if you want.  i feel that pre-heating  is a waste of gas, also my oven heats up pretty fast so i waited a few steps.

step 2: combine chocolate, butter, espresso and salt in a double boiler until all the chocolate and butter is melted and smooth.

step 3: while the chocolate and butter is melting, butter and flour the baking pan.  then line with parchment paper.  i'm not exactly sure why the pan has to be butter-ed and flour-ed if using parchment paper, but i did it.  whateves.  this is also when i started pre-heating the oven.

step 4: once the chocolate-butter mixture is melted take it off the heat to cool a little.  combine eggs, sugar and vanilla in a larger bowl and whisk until smooth.

step 5:  slowly add the melted chocolate to the eggs and sugar.  whisk until well combined.  i used my electric mixer with the whisk attachment on the lowest setting.  be careful when adding the melted chocolate, if you add too much to the eggs when its still hot you'll end up with scrambled eggs!

step 6: fold in the flour until it disappears.  if you choose to add the pecans (yuck!) then you should fold them in after the flour, but i really can't see why anyone would want nuts in these brownies.

step 7: pour batter into butter-ed, flour-ed, parchment paper lined baking pan.  bake for about 35 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.  every single time i've made these brownies i have to add about 15 minutes because its not even close to being ready so is more like bake for 50 minutes for me. 

step 7: let cool in pan for at least 1 hour.  after 30 minutes of cooling make the glaze: whisk butter, kahlua and vanilla till combined, then add the powdered sugar.  whisk till smooth. 

step 8: pour glaze over brownies, spread with a butter knife.  let harden - i usually make the brownies the night before and let harden over night.  

step 9: once the glaze is hard, pull out the brownies but the edges of the parchment paper sticking out.  cut to desired size.  enjoy!