Chocolate Brownie Delirium

For a clear conscience, cut your serving in four little pieces; eat them all, of course

I’m writing to anyone who’s ever been seriously distracted by chocolate.

I care about this, so I’ll share a secret: The Complete Cooking for Two Cookbook is my one of my favorite cookbooks. Everything is easily doubled for company. You can count on Cooking for Two.

But I promised you chocolate.

My brownie in four little pieces

Be sure to cut your serving as above, in four little pieces. If you don’t eat them all at once, disguise the container you store them in, maybe an unused butter dish.

Back to the Cookbook. The Editors at America’s Test Kitchen tell their secrets!

Two types of chocolate — semisweet and cocoa powder — gave us plenty of fudgy flavor. To make our batter easy to mix by hand, we melted the semisweet chocolate quickly in the microwave. A whole egg plus an extra yolk made our brownies rich, moist, and chewy. … Be careful not to overbake these brownies or they will have a very dry, cakey texture. … If you use a larger 9” by 5” loaf pan, start checking for doneness 5 minutes earlier than advised in the recipe.

They showed me how to make an aluminum foil sling to easily remove the cake from the pan when it’s cool.

From The Complete Cooking for Two Cookbook

Wait no longer, here’s the recipe. I put on a 4” by 6” card.

Take your ingredients out of the pantry and refrigerator, and mix the batter. Open the kitchen window if it’s a nice spring day.

While the brownies are baking, I’ll tell you why it’s so exquisite to cut your brownie in little pieces. I found it in an article in The New York Times about making truffles. (Truffles!)

Chocolate truffles should be one-bite affairs, no more than an inch in diameter — three-quarters of an inch is ideal.

The brownies have finished cooling out on the porch table. Bring them in, lift the foil from the pan, discard it, and cut the brownies.

From The Complete Cooking for Two Cookbook

Remember, though, now you know a far better way to cut the brownies than the cooks do at America’s Test Kitchen (above). Promise me you’ll keep our little secret.

Photos of the brownie on my plate, recipe card, and mixing bowls are by Deda Edney.

Fudgy Brownies recipe, “Making a Foil Sling”, and photo of cut brownies are from The Complete Cooking for Two Cookbook: 650 Recipes for Everything You’ll Ever Want to Make, by the Editors at America’s Test Kitchen, Penguin Random House Publisher Services. 2014 [I’ve found the pages tend to fall out, but it’s worth it.]

Quote from The New York Times article, “The Small Luxury of Chocolate Truffles”