Chocolate Brownies with Walnuts

A warm hello to all. This little space of mine had been silent for a long time now. I missed blogging terribly but I must admit taking a break really helped. A lot of new changes have taken place in the past 10 months and each thing needed it's own personal time and space and blogging definitely took a back seat. 

I wanted to give a long detailed explanation to my absence but I'm going to save you the boredom and just say two major developments happened in the past half year.
First : End of Jan 2016 we moved out of Minneapolis to the Queen city of Charlotte, North Carolina. Although we are still settling down and miss our old friends and familiar places, we have started liking this city and have started making new friends. We bought a new house and Lil'Appu started Kindergarten this year and seems to happy with all his new buddies. So lots of things kept us really busy.

Second: Lets hear some Drum-rolls....we had our second bundle of joy almost a week after Appu's 5th b'day. Yes, my lil'Appu has a little sister now. On July16th,2016 our baby girl, Mihika was born!
So being pregnant until July 16th and being a new Mommy to a newborn from July16th were the other things that I was upto in between all this shifting, house hunting, office work and settling down...Lol!!

We are simply happy to be new parents again and Appu is a dotting big brother who can't seem to get enough of giving her hugs and kisses. We are both happy and super busy with a newborn at home and she is obviously taking up all my time. Our baby girl is 2 months old and times flying past and we are doing our best to absorb all the baby cuteness.

I haven't really bothered with much cooking or baking in a long time. Nothing that was blog worthy at least. Last week however I was feeling a bit relaxed and baby Mihi was being a very good girl so I decided to make a simple batch of Chocolate brownies. I was actually able to make them undisturbed while baby Mihi slept and they came out perfect :-)
I wasn't even planning to blog about it, but when I shared a pic of the brownies on FB, I got hundreds of requests for the recipe and I felt these brownies have to be shared, they are just that good!

I didn't take any good pics, just took few on my mobile and sharing those here. These brownies are almost fudge like, very chocolaty and chewy and the walnuts added a perfect crunch. If you do not prefer walnuts add chocolate chips for a little bite. The top has a nice flaky crust as well as you can see.

Chocolate Brownies with Walnuts

 Makes around 16-20 brownies

You'll Need 

5 oz Semi-sweet Chocolate (chopped)

½ cup (1 stick) unsalted Butter, cut into pieces

2 Tblsp Cocoa powder

1 cup granulated white Sugar

1 tsp Pure Vanilla extract

3 large Eggs (at room temperature)

¾ cup All-purpose flour

Salt, a pinch 

¾ cup chopped Walnuts

Directions:

1. Pre-heat oven to 350F.  Grease and line an 8" square baking tray with parchment paper. (I used a 9” square pan, an 8” square pan gives thicker brownies)

2. Add 5oz chopped chocolate and chopped butter pieces in a glass bowl and melt them over a double boiler (place the bowl over a saucepan of simmering hot water)

3. Once completely melted remove from heat, add cocoa powder and sugar and whisk gently until the sugar is incorporated well.

4. Next whisk in the vanilla extract and eggs one by one beating well.

5. Finally, stir in the flour, salt and walnuts.

6. Pour into baking tray and bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with a little batter and a few moist clumps clinging to it. Do not over bake.

Recipe Source: Joyof Baking

I'm not going to make any promises that I'll blog frequently from now but I'm surely going to try to be more regular here. It's such a relief to get back to doing old things that I loved doing and it's great to get back in touch with you all. Do say Hi in the comments if you happen to visit :-) 

-Manju

Katherine Hepburn Brownies - the best brownies ever!

I should ideally be sharing something that has to do with Apples or Pumpkins or Halloween to stay with the seasonal craze that's going on all over blogosphere with the onset of Fall.  Our green lawn is completely filled with yellow and orange maple leaves and all kinds of other colorful leaves that's fallling away to glory and I must admit, it does look pretty even with all the added work of now blowing away the fallen leaves and collecting them apart from lawn mowing!

But there’s one thing that definitely ‘all-time and any season’ to me, and that’s Chocolate!!!  I’m very much a chocoholic in every sense. Give me a choice of desserts and you’ll always see me pick up something that has chocolate in it. 

            " Whether I’m happy or sad, yellow or blue, all I need is you…Chocolate! " 

Hey that rhymed…well, somewhat….and I totally just made it up :-D 

Lil’Appu has started learning about colors at his daycare so I spend all my time asking him what color is your shirt, what color is your spoon, what color is your toothbrush etc, hence the mention of colors in the rhyme as well, yellow and blue being his current fav ones, which keeps changing every other day!

Lil’Appu has his mommy’s taste buds and is ready for a chocolaty treat anytime. So I have company at home…or should I say competition with Manish included? ;-) 
And the fact that my b'day is just 2 days away I'm already considering something chocolate for the day, but I donno if I'll prepare my own b'day cake (I kinda find that weird) and I'd rather have someone pamper me with something they made or brought than me cooking/baking on my b'day...anyways its a working day for us, so plans are limited :-)

These brownies are popularly known as Katherine Hepburn Brownies, named after the legendary American actress Katherine Hepburn, ‘coz its believed she is the creator of this marvelous recipe. They are so smooth, chocolaty and fudgy and absolutely melts in your mouth. I mean like literally melts in your mouth...trust me!

They are so simple to make and I even read somewhere that the consistency is such that even if you over-bake these brownies a bit, they still remain fudgy & chewy…now, I have NOT verified this point, but isn’t that good ? They turn out with a crusty top and a soft and chewy interior and are just yumm!  These will forever be my go-to recipe for Brownies for sure.

Read this before you start:

These brownies may stick to your pan like crazy, especially in the middle….I had to literally scrape them off the pan, breaking the brownie into bits and pieces to get them out the first time I baked these, inspite of greasing & flouring my pan.

So cut out a wax paper or parchment paper that will cover the bottom of your pan. Grease your pan, put in the wax paper, grease the wax paper and dust with flour and then add brownie batter. Once baked, the brownie will come out easily and just peel the wax paper away…simple!

Katherine Hepburn Brownies

Recipe source: Joy of Baking

Makes approx 16 brownies if cut into squares

You'll Need

Unsweetened Chocolate, coarsely chopped - 2 ounces (60 grams)

Unsalted Butter, cut into pieces – ½ cup (113 grams)

Granulated white Sugar - 1 cup (200 grams)

Eggs - 2 large

Pure Vanilla extract – ½ teaspoon

All-purpose flour – ¼ cup (30 grams)

Salt - a pinch

Chopped Walnuts or Pecans (optional) - 1 cup (100 grams)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 325F (165C) and place rack in center of oven.

2. Cutout a wax paper to cover bottom of an 8” square baking pan. Butter the pan on all sides, put in the wax paper, butter the wax paper and dust with flour  on all sides.

3. Melt the chocolate and butter in a stainless steel/glass bowl placed over a saucepan of simmering water.

4. Remove from heat and stir in the sugar. Next, stir in the vanilla extract and eggs. Finally, stir in the flour, salt and chopped nuts (if using).

5. Pour into the prepared pan and bake for about 30 - 35 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove from oven and let cool on a wire rack. Serve at room temperature or chilled. 

Some points:

1. I have used Semi-Sweetened Chocolate as well for these brownies and they still taste great.

2.  I have baked these in my 9”round cake pan as well with a reduced baking time, and though it was thinner, the brownies tasted great and you can cut them into triangular wedges and pretend it’s a cake slice instead ;-)

3. A scoop of vanilla Ice Cream or some whipped cream would really be good on these brownies…yeah!

I made these for our close family friends who were leaving from Minneapolis and they had planned to drive down to another state where they would be settling down with their 3 small children. As the drive was long I felt it would be nice for them to have something to munch on and I made these brownies for a chocolaty snack. As I wasn't sure if any of the kids were allergic to nuts, I omitted from adding walnuts for them. I later tried these for ourselves with the Walnuts, and trust me, both ways these brownies will blow your mind. 

So try them out any time you crave for Brownies or anything Chocolate :-) 

Happy Fall you All !!  Another rhyming sentence, I guess I'm in a mood for rhymes today...Teehee...

-Manju