Serve with warning labels

Remember our good friend the Model Bakery Cookbook?

We do. The Chief Taster now tells people about running the Napa Valley Marathon not because she got her best time there, but because the next day we bought this cookbook, and she wants everyone to know about this cookbook. Seems weird, coming from someone who loves to brag about herself, but maybe it's her way of bragging about what she gets to eat.

This summer, we went to a friend's birthday cookout. They requested that I bring "something yummy for dessert." I didn't get any further clarification except "brownies?" I couldn't remember ever baking brownies that weren't from a mix (when I want hand-edible sweet treats, I usually bake cookies), but as the Chief Taster tells everyone, "everything from that book is amazing," so I checked the Model Bakery index.

There was one little problem: the book calls for an 8x8 pan, and I was serving around 20 people (plus some smallish humans I hadn't anticipated), so I first made a test batch of the prescribed size, then increased the recipe to fit in a 9x13 for the actual party. Both batches happened in the same week, and by the time we got to the actual party, I was already saturated with brownie, and couldn't bring myself to eat them anymore.

Which isn't to say they weren't good.

I was a little thrown by the texture; it wasn't what I had expected, and maybe wasn't what I had in mind, but they were ridiculously popular, possibly for the same reason. These aren't your usual box-mix, flaky-topped brownies. These are more like fudge and brownies had a baby, and it ate all your chocolate chips. They are thick, rich, a little dense, and as we learned after the cookout, should not be fed to gremlins after 7 PM. I called them:

Weapons-Grade Brownies

3/4 C plus 1 T unsalted butter, plus more for the pan
unbleached all-purpose flour for the pan
1 C cake flour (I used all-purpose)
3/4 t baking powder
3/4 t salt
10 oz semisweet chocolate, finely chopped (the book says "no more than 55% cacao," and wants you to buy a bar and chop it up. I just bought a bag of chips. Their cacao rating was not labeled. I live dangerously.)
1 C sugar
3 T espresso (in my case, 1 1/2 t instant espresso dissolved in 3 T boiling water)
1 t vanilla
3 large eggs
1 1/3 C semisweet chocolate chips

• Preheat oven to 350F.
• Butter an 8 inch square pan. Dust with flour, shake to coat, and dump the excess. The book said to line the bottom with parchment paper, but I can't think of any reason to do that.
• Put the the chopped chocolate (or 10 oz of chips, you dangerous rebel!) into a large mixing bowl. We're going to do a slow melt in it later, so make sure the bowl has plenty of room above the chips for stirring.
• Heat the butter, coffee, and sugar in a saucepan over medium heat, stirring often. When the butter is melted and everything has blended, pour it over the chocolate and let it set for a minute or so until the chocolate has softened. Add the vanilla and mix until the chocolate has melted.
• Beat the eggs into the chocolate. Mix in the flour, powder, and salt. Make sure you get the bits that stick to the bowl; we want it all blended. Fold in the chips. Spread batter evenly in the pan.
• This is where I ran into problems with my test batch. The book said to bake for 35 minutes. I did. I even did the toothpick test. Everything looked fine until I tried to serve myself a delicious, oven-warm brownie, and a thick, muddy landslide oozed into the space I had opened (see bottom left corner of picture). The "brownie" I tried to pull from the pan was a formless glob of (delicious, decadent, dangerous) goo which flopped wetly from the spatula and onto the counter, plate, and my hand. It was far too warm for my hand, but that's another issue. The pan had been out of the oven 15 minutes by then, but I stuck it back in and waited patiently. I really don't remember how long it finally baked. but I let it cool until after dinner (a few hours) before trying to serve more.
• Since this was my test batch, I was concerned about the "real" batch I was going to make later, by doubling the batch size and using a larger pan. I baked that one for 55 minutes, and didn't touch it until hours later, at the party, giving it plenty of time to finish setting outside the oven and cool to a more cohesive temperature.
• How long should you bake it? Hell if I know. Figure it out. Worst case, cover it with ice cream.

I mentioned that they are unusually thick, rich brownies. On the email chain about food people were bringing to the cookout, I labeled my contribution "Weapons-Grade Brownies," and this naturally invited some questions. Hours after the party, I got this email from a mother of three who attended with her husband and gremlins:

I now understand that "weapons-grade," when used in reference to brownies means "one twin will be so wound up she will throw her bottle on the floor and have pretend conversations on her lego car/telephone, while the other twin will throw her arm around your shoulder and sing ribald songs of the sea while kicking twin #1 and fending off random hits from the car/telephone."  One of them is still talking.  I'm not going in there to find out which.

 In case you are wondering, this was the ribald song of the sea. I did not teach it.