Salted Cocoa Brownies

Confession time: even though I know that certain things are bad for me, that they will only cause me pain, that I will cry and cry when I feel their consequence, I still want them.

This is a story about the failed romance between these salted cocoa brownies and my rapidly growing derriere, as the French say.

After a difficult weekend, I decided I needed to have brownies on Sunday night.* Too busy with pernil to trifle with baked goods at that moment, I dreamed about them all of Monday before finally succumbing to temptation Monday night. I mean, I had all of the ingredients. I was feeling blah. It was Monday. (Do I even need to go on here?) I had my eyes set on the famed cocoa brownies from Alice Medrich’s book Bittersweet. She eschews real chocolate and opts for cocoa on purpose.

Medrich says, “cocoa brownies have the softest center and chewiest candylike top ‘crust’ of all because all of the fat in the recipe (except for a small amount of cocoa butter in the cocoa) is butter, and all of the sugar is granulated sugar rather than the finely milled sugar used in chocolate.” Not having to buy real chocolate saves me a trip to the grocery store, and well, that’s good enough for me.

Of course, I had to make some tweaks. I decided I wasn’t craving regular brownies, I wanted salted cocoa brownies. Perhaps this was my obsession with salt in desserts gone too far. But once I got the idea in my head, I couldn’t shake it. Salt brings out something special in desserts, you see. It takes something very sweet and adds a bite to it, a little complexity. Because I used fleur de sel, there was even a little crunch, a welcome textural addition to what is an extremely fudgy (the only kind, in my opinion) brownie. While this amount of salt might be a little much for some, I encourage you to try it out. Maybe start with a little less on this batch — I promise you there will many more to come.

Because oh, in case I forgot to mention, these are gooooood. Overcome a bad case of the Mondays good. Have them for dinner on Tuesday and again today good. Turn your frown upside down good. Worst of all, forget about bathing suit season is omg, only a few months away good. Faced with a summer of bad cover-ups, or worse, old gym shorts, even my bottom has had to let go.

*Brownies are a weird craving for me, because honestly, I don’t like them very much. I prefer to mainline chocolate in its pure, unadulterated form, and butter, eggs, flour and sugar are just unnecessary. My rare exception is the addition of peanut butter, in the form of a Reese’s cup every now and then every day. But I had to have these brownies. God works in mysterious ways.

Salted Cocoa Brownies
Adapted slightly from Alice Medrich

This batter is extremely thick and can be a little difficult to work with. On the plus side, all of that stirring probably accounts for the caloric intake of oh … a crumb?

– 10 tablespoons (1-1/4 sticks) unsalted butter

– 1-1/4 cups sugar

– 3/4 cup + 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder (natural or Dutch-process)

– 3/4 teaspoon sea salt or coarse salt**

– 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

– 2 cold large eggs

– 1/2 cup all-purpose flour

**These brownies were pretty salty. Start with 1/2 teaspoon salt and go from there if you’re new to the salted dessert club. Also, this is not a recipe for regular Morton’s salt. Regular salt is much much harsher than sea salt, and using 1/2 or 3/4 of a teaspoon of it would probably make these brownies inedible. If you only have regular salt on hand, start with 1/4 of a teaspoon and taste the melting chocolate mixture, adding salt little by little, until you reach the flavor you desire.

1) Line the bottom of an 8-x-8 baking pan with parchment paper or foil, leaving an overhang on two opposite sides.

2) In a medium heatproof bowl, mix together the butter, cocoa, sugar and salt and set the bowl in a skillet of barely simmering water. Stir every now and then until the butter has completely melted and the mixture is quite hot. [Alternately, you can put the bowl in the microwave, checking every minute or so until the butter is completely melted.] Set the bowl aside so that the mixture cools slightly.

3) Stir in the vanilla with a wooden spoon.*** Add the eggs one at a time and stir vigorously after each one. When the batter is thick, shiny and well-blended, add the flour and and stir for 40 strokes, until the mixture is smooth. [No, 39 strokes will not do. It must be 40!] Spread the batter evenly in the pan.

3) Bake at 325ËšF until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out slightly moist with batter, about 25 minutes. Allow the brownies to cool slightly before lifting the foil ends up to cut the brownies on a cutting board.

***I have no idea why Medrich specifies a wooden spoon, but I kind of love the recipe more for it. I’m sure any other spoon would be absolutely fine, as would a rubber spatula.

[print in PDF form]

Note: A friend of mine from high school also blogs about food, and while having lunch with a mutual friend on Monday, I mentioned I was craving brownies like a fiend. She mentioned that Jill, purveyor of the fabulous blog Glutton for Punitions, had recently posted about brownies as well. So while these bad boys were baking in the oven, I checked Jill’s blog and lo and behold, we had made the same recipe! Ha.