The Forbidden Brownie

Those Brownies.

This is not the best representation of how gooey these brownies really are.  Sorry about that.  We ate all the gooey ones before I could get out my camera.

Yes friends, we're going to talk about those brownies. I made two pans of these brownies for a recent family gathering. To say they went over well would be a bit of an understatement. They were still warm from the oven and deliciously gooey in the centre. (We won't talk about the pan that was still gooey in the centre but a little burnt on the bottom. It would seem that I don't get along well with my aunt's oven.)

Brownies
Taken from How To Be A Domestic Goddess: Baking and The Art of Comfort Cooking by Nigella Lawson

375 g soft unsalted butter (yup, almost a full pound of butter in these babies)
375 g best quality dark chocolate (to balance the butter of course!)
6 large eggs
1 T vanilla extract
500 g caster sugar
225 g plain flour
1 t salt
300 g dried cherries & white chocolate chunks (or all cherries, or nuts or whatever floats your boat)

Preheat the oven to 350F. Line a 9 x 13 inch pan with parchment paper.

Yes, I use Omega 3 eggs.  And yes, I should have moved them, and the watermelon, from my photo.  What can I say?  I was rushing.  Nothing new there!

Melt the butter and chocolate together in a large heavy based pan. In a bowl or large wide-mouthed measuring jug, beat the eggs with the sugar and the vanilla. Measure the flour into another bowl and add the salt.

When the chocolate mixture has melted, let it cool a bit before beating in the eggs and sugar, and then the cherries and flour. Beat to combine smoothly and then scrape out of the saucepan into the lined pan.

I'm not sure, even after making them this way several times, that I will continue to add white chocolate chips.  I may just stick with all cherries.   

Don't worry about the batter leaking over the edges.  It's very thick and you should have time to straighten the parchment paper if things go awry.  But, even if there should be a bit of batter that escapes, no worries.  It will clean up easily.  Thank you butter!

Bake for about 25 minutes. (I've always found that it needs more like 35 - 40 min but then again my oven is wonky so don't go by that.) When it's ready, the top should be dried to a paler brown speckle, but the middle still dark and dense and gooey. And even with such a big batch you do need to keep alert, keep checking; the difference between gungy brownies and dry brownies is only a few minutes; remember that they will continue to cook as they cool.

Makes a maximum of 48.

I once so severely undercooked a pan of these brownies that they had to be nuked, once cut into pieces, to be edible. It was actually all kinds of awesome. I froze almost the whole pan and then nuked the pieces just before eating so they were warm and gooey but properly gooey and not raw egg gooey.

This is what my kitchen looked like while I was making the brownies.  I was also making chicken pasta salad and beet salad.