Melt In Your Mouth Brownies

Hello, World!  Welcome to the inaugural post of Beyond the Box:  Baking from Scratch! I'm very glad you're here! (See?! Exclamation points!)

Sorry, I've never been good with ice breakers, so I'll just get right into it.  As you've probably guessed from the title and description of this blog and my profile, I'm going to be sharing recipes for sweet treats that are made from scratch.  This isn't to say we will never use anything pre-made.  For example, graham cracker crusts will start with graham crackers in a box.  If you are feeling fancy and want to make your own graham crackers and the pulverize them so as to turn them into a crust, be my guest.

I just want to share the joy that is making something sweet to share (or to guiltily eat way too much of all on your own, I won't judge) that didn't come from a box with its picture on the front.  Baking is fun, and when you use a box, all the fun part is already done for you.  Why are we letting Betty Crocker and Duncan Hines steal all our floury fun?!  Baked-goods bullies!  Well no more!

I will admit that I have *one* boxed cake mix in my pantry.  It is my Emergency Cake.  I bought it when I had to take a birthday cake into the office and was trying a new recipe.  I figured, with the natural orneriness of things, if I bought the backup Emergency Mix, my recipe would come out fine.  If I didn't, however, the scratch cake would be a disaster, and I would have nothing to bring in for the birthday of our firm president, and I would look like a fool.  My theory worked, the cake turned out great, and that's why the box is still in my pantry: for the next emergency.

I've seen recipes on Pinterest with instructions on how to make a boxed cake mix taste like a bakery cake, adding extra eggs and butter, and to that I say: if you're going to go to that much trouble, just make it from scratch to start with!  It's just measuring out some flour, sugar and baking powder!

Today I'm going to share one of my favorite from scratch recipes: Melt in Your Mouth Brownies.  They are moist, chocolatey, easy-peasy, and best of all, you probably have all the ingredients on hand.   That's actually how I came by this recipe.  (In an effort to give credit where credit is due, I feel obligated to say that I found this recipe online originally, but it was around seven years ago, and as a junior in college needing a quick chocolate fix, I didn't keep the source. I just copied and pasted the recipe and have been using it ever since, with a minor adjustment here and there.  So if this looks alarmingly similar to something you created and posted years ago, I thank you.  This is delightful.  I'd be happy to post a link back to your original recipe if you let me know!)  I needed a chocolate fix, but didn't have the proper ingredients to make my favorite chocolate chip cookies.  I did, however, have everything this recipe called for, and as a poor college student, I was pretty thrilled. I'm also not entirely convinced that this recipe didn't persuade my husband to marry me.  It's that good.

The first thing you're going to do is melt your butter (and hang on to the wrapper!)  Cutting it into pieces just makes the melting go faster, and for the record you don't have to do this on the stove.  You can definitely melt it in the microwave if that's more your style. 

Look, I said they were tasty; nothing about healthy.

Once the butter is melted remove it from the heat. Since I melted mine in a pan and not in the microwave, I let it sit for a minute or two and gently swirled it to let some of the heat off for the next step.  A lot of these pictures will look like it's still on the stove, and technically it is, but my pan is on a burner that was off because I don't have a ton of counter space.

I also used this time to prepare my pan by buttering it with that butter wrapper and then sprinkling a little extra cocoa in.  This works like flouring your pan, but since the brownies are chocolate, the cocoa doesn't show up the way white flour would.

Pretty!

I use Dutch cocoa because it's a little darker and richer.  Regular cocoa powder would work too, but Dutch is what I have on hand because I like it better.

Now that the butter has cooled, I add my sugar and vanilla right into the pan and mix it up, and then add eggs (that's why it needed to cool.  Brownies with chunks of cooked egg in them = disgusting).

Mmm.... Butter-sugar-egg-goo!

Next it finally starts to look like brownie batter with the addition of the cocoa, flour, salt, and baking powder.  I sifted mine because I wanted to play with my new sifter, but that's totally optional. I've made these loads of times without sifting, and it's just fine.

And stir!

It will be pretty thick at this point, not runny, so it'll probably need some help getting out of the cook pan (or mixing bowl or whatever vessel you're mixing in) into the baking pan, so I recommend a good strong spatula, and also make sure to spread it into the corners of the pan.  It won't come very high up on the pan, so if it looks like there isn't enough, don't worry. Just trust the chocolate.

Pop it into your oven and when it passes the toothpick test, take it out and let it cool for just as long as you can stand.  I prefer them still warm and gooey, but they're still excellent once they've cooled.

Look at that beautiful, flaky top!

And, voila! Look how dark and luscious they are! Delicious with a glass of milk, or a scoop of ice cream, or some whipped cream, or nothing at all.  Enjoy!

Melt In Your Mouth Brownies

Prep time: 5-10 minutes
Cook time: 25-30 minutes
Yield: 9-16 brownies, depending on how you cut them.

1/2 cup butter (1 stick)

1 cup white sugar

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/3 cup unsweetened dutch cocoa powder, plus 1/4 tsp more to coat pan

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).

Use the butter wrapper to grease an 8 inch square pan and sprinkle the extra 1/4 tsp. cocoa powder on it.

In a large saucepan, melt butter. Remove from heat, and stir in sugar, eggs, and vanilla. Beat in cocoa, flour, salt, and baking powder. Spread or pour batter into prepared pan. Bake in preheated oven for 25 to 30 minutes. Be careful not to overcook as the batter is dark and burning is difficult to see.