Chocolate Brownies (from the Cookie Jar)

Brownies have always been a favourite sweet treat of mine, even more so than cakes. I love the moist fudgey texture of brownies, and if you make them with semi-sweet or even dark chocolate, they're not all that sweet. Just chocolatey. Which is great, because I don't really like sweet things anyway. :P

Anyway, I quite like Sainsbury's bakery brownies, where they put chocolate chunks on top of the brownie, but they're horrible expensive. Like, 3 squares for a pound. So when I came across this recipe here, which uses chocolate chips, I thought, wahey! And when the person described the brownie as being moist and fudgey, well, its wahey even more! ;) So here we go then!

What you need:
2 cups plain chocolate chips, divided - I used 150g chocolate chips, and another 150g of plain chocolate, broken into pieces
1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar
1 cup butter - roughly 200-250g
2 teaspoons vanilla
5 eggs
1 1/3 cup flour
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

What you do:

1. Preheat oven to 180 C, and grease and flour (I used more cocoa powder) and 9x13 inch baking pan. (Unfortunately, I only had a 8x8 inch pan available)
   
2. Melt the butter, 1 cup of the chocolate chips (i used the plain chocolate pieces) and sugar together in a large saucepan over low heat until smooth. Stir often to keep from burning. Take off heat and allow to cool slightly.
3. Add in the eggs one at a time into the chocolate mixture, whisking well after each addition.
   
4. Add in the vanilla and whisk well.
5. In a separate bowl, sift in the flour, cocoa powder and salt. Add to the chocolate mixture right in the pan and stir gently until just combined. (Unfortunately, I was making this with my little cousin and she dumped the whole thing into the pan without mixing. So I might have had to stir it more than recommended)
6. Add the remaining chocolate chips and stir to distribute throughout the batter. (I reserved a few tablespoons to sprinkle over the top later)
7. Pour batter into the prepared baking pan. It should be very thick. Smooth out the top and sprinkle over the reserved chocolate chips over the top, if you wish. Press down slightly into the batter and then bake in preheated oven for 25-30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out with only a few moist crumbs clinging to the centre. Allow to cool before cutting into squares.

One thing that attracted me to this recipe was that it didn't use any kind of raising agent. No baking soda, no baking powder and no self-raising flour being used. So the resulting brownie should not at all be cakey, right?

Unfortunately, the answer is wrong. I should have known, because if I compare this recipe to my favourite recipe, there's about half as much of chocolate and twice as much of flour. So the resulting brownie was, to me, not as fudgey and slightly cake-like in texture. (Haha, I just keep on using those two words to describe brownies, don't I?)

Anyway, moving on from the texture, I did like the chocolate chips on top, I must say. The ones that were mixed into the batter had completely melted away. On hindsight, maybe that was supposed to help with the texture of the brownies, but I didn't think of it then. But anyway, the ones on top were still intact, just a bit gooey if you ate them straight from the oven. But if you wait and let the brownies cool down for a bit, they're a really nice addition. In fact, I would suggest you put all 150g of the chocolate chips into the batter and just get some extra to sprinkle over the top. It might be that will improve the texture, and you will still get the lovely chocolate chip topping on top. :)

As usual with brownie recipes, this is a rather easy one to do. I would highly suggest that you get the correct size pan though. Because I used a smaller one, the brownies were slightly thicker than I would have liked (though luckily, they didn't overspill) and again, this might have affected the texture. Yes, to me, brownies are all about the texture. :D

Quote of the day: Giving chocolate to others is an intimate form of communication, a sharing of deep, dark secrets.