Rick Katz is the owner of one of the best pizza restaurants in Boston. Don’t believe me? His pizza made the list of the top 100 best pizza places in the country. Picco isn’t just a pizza joint. They make ice cream, have tons of craft beers, a killer (and ever changing wine list) and they’re home to the most amazing molten lava chocolate cake.
You can Google him and you’ll see this guy knows his stuff… His desserts are off the hook so when I stumbled across this brownie recipe, that he supposedly made for Julia Child, I had to give it a whirl.
What’s different about this recipe is he mixes half the sugar into the melted chocolate and the rest into the eggs. Then the egg mixture is folded into the batter in stages.
These little buggers are gooey… I mean seriously gooey. The toothpick test will never work so just trust me when I tell you that they’re done after 28-30 minutes. I think the cream cheese added to the original cooking time of 20-25 mins.
Don’t do the tinfoil in the pan trick because as I learned last night, as I was trying to get them out of the pan, the tinfoil only makes things worse. Just grease and / or lightly flour a Pyrex dish well and you’ll be fine.
I melted 8oz of cream cheese in a double boiler then dropped globs of the goodness on top of the batter.
Next, I took a BBQ skewer and swirled in the cream cheese.
You will never, ever, buy a box of brownie mix again…..oh and you’ll need a fork for these bad boys.
INGREDIENTS:
1 c. all-purpose flour
1 tsp salt
2 sticks unsalted butter, cut into 16 pieces
4 oz. unsweetened chocolate, coarsely chopped
2 oz. bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
2 c. sugar
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
4 large eggs
Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350º F. Put a 9 inch square baking pan (I like to use Pyrex for this) on a baking sheet. Whisk flour and salt together.
Set a heat proof bowl over a saucepan of gently simmering water, put the butter and chocolate in. Stir frequently until the ingredients are just melted-you don’t want them to get so hot that the butter separates. Add 1 c. sugar and whisk gently just to incorporate it, then remove the bowl from the pan of water. Stir in the vanilla and transfer to a large bowl.
Put the remaining cup of sugar into the bowl of a stand mixer or a medium bowl and whisking a whisk, stir in the eggs. Switch to a rubber spatula and little by little add half of the sugar-egg mixture to the warm chocolate, stirring very gently without stopping-you don’t want the heat of the chocolate to cook the eggs.
With the whisk attachment or with a hand mixer, until they double in volume. Using a spatula and a light touch, fold the whipped eggs into the chocolate, stopping just short of blending them in completely.
Sprinkle the dry ingredients over the batter and delicately fold them in, working only until they disappear. Scrape the batter into the pan and smooth the top with the spatula.
Bake for 25-28 minutes, or until the top looks dry. Poke a thin knife intot he center and take a peek: The brownies should be only just set and still pretty gooey.
Transfer the pan to a rack and cool to room temperature.
Newburyport Bites 