Erica's "Best Ever" Brownies aka Chocolate Pancreas Destroyers

  A while back I ranted a bit on calling recipes "Best Ever." I feel that if you're going to do that, you'd better have your research done. You'd better be damned sure that no better recipe exists on this planet, in all of recorded history, or I will call you out on it. One of my friends from Way Back threw down the gauntlet. She sang the praises of her brownies. "Best Ever," she crowed proudly. I told her to put her money where her mouth is and send me the recipe.

Come at me, bro.

The verdict? Well, "Best Ever" is subjective. What may be the best ever for me might not be the best ever for you. I will say this. These are some of the best damned brownies I've had in a long, long time. A little bit of a crunch on the outside gives way to a chewy, alarmingly rich center.

Erica's "Best Ever" Brownies
aka
Chocolate Pancreas Destroyers

Ingredients

• 4 oz. Bakers's unsweetened chocolate
• 2 sticks butter (salted) or margarine (you might as well just use butter at this point. If you're making these, you're probably not watching fat and calorie intake)
• 4 cups sugar
• 4 eggs
• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 tsp real vanilla extract or other flavoring
• 1 12 ounce package semi-sweet chocolate morsels or other flavor if desired

Directions

1. Pre-heat oven to °350F
2. Spray a 8x10 pan (glass/Pyrex is recommended) with cooking spray or butter and dust with flour
3. Melt baker's chocolate in a double boiler OR melt butter and chocolate in a microwavable bowl stirring frequently to prevent burning. Melt till completely smooth and combined
4. Add sugar and mix thoroughly
5. In a separate bowl beat eggs well
6. Add eggs to chocolate mixture tempering to prevent scrambled eggs
7. Add flour in small batches till well combined and there are no streaks or lumps of flour
8. Pour complete batter into pan evenly
9. Take chocolate morsels and cover the top of the batter evenly
10. Bake at °350 for 35 minutes or until the edges just pull away and a toothpick comes out of the center still with moist crumbs

Notes: These, for whatever reason, took me a bit longer than the recipe called for. I cooked them for closer to 50 minutes. It's quite possible I goofed somewhere, but no harm seemed to be done. The result was the outside pieces had a bit of a crunch to the outside. The wife loves a brownie with a crunchy outside, so it was a win. Try the recipe as-is, then see where you end up on cooking time. Under-cooked is much easier to fix than over.

Good times!