Tuesdays (Sans) Dorie

Yes, I had designs on doing my own brioche..using Dorie's recipe, using half for the raisin pinwheels the other half of the dough for the brioche-bread pudding...Then the weekend totally went out of control...I scaled down to: "I'll go buy some brioche and just do it that way.." but then the more I thought about it, the more I thought I could not be trusted with bread pudding in the house--CHOCOLATE bread pudding at that...and I have a major date with the chocolate cream tart next week and was loving the torte last week...what's a mom-to-be to do when she's gaining weight every week as it is?! Plus, the big thing is I feared I had no one to share it with beyond Dear Husband, and I wasn't so sure it was up his alley.

So, I was going to forgo all of baking this week. Then I thought that I wanted to make my guy something special seeing as we celebrate 3 year wedding anniversary Wednesday...(here we are 3 yrs ago, April 22!) and because he worked super hard out in our yard all weekend (Spring was in the air all weekend up in CT this weekend! It was sunny and in the 70's! Gorgeous!) Dear Husband LOVES dark chocolate...I thought cake at first but THEN I remembered seeing the recipe for "Perfect Chocolate Brownies" as I browsed through Phe-Mom-enon's blog last week!





It wasn't a cheap recipe by any means, as I took this opportunity to finally upgrade my cocoa powder from the rather pedestrian Nestle (forgive me expert bakers for being so mainstream!) to something better. The spree did not end there as the recipe called for 11oz dark chocolate...the higher end the better...and at about $1/ounce it did not come cheaply....but I wanted to give this recipe the best shot.


And I'm so glad I did!! Because the result were the.most.amazing brownies I have EVER had!





I did not take photos of it in progress as I was trying hard to follow the recipe (there are very specific instructions to ensure your brownies are not 'cakey' and are moist and 'fudge-like' so I had to focus all energies on that!)



Find recipe here which will take you to the day PheMOMenon posted the recipe, adapted from Baked: New Frontiers in Baking (not only is her post that day about these perfectly heavenly moist brownies, but about her new gig as a writer for Examiner.com as the Salt Lake "Baking Examiner"! Impressive!) It's a rather easy recipe to get together--no electric mixer needed--just double boiler, bowls and the yummy ingredients. I am not one for nuts in my brownies, but these are SO incredibly dense and fudgy that they could very well compliment them...but for me they are perfect!! :) So a shout-out to the Phe-Mom-enon for sharing this recipe! I'd like to think it means that one I will have a child who brags, "MY mom makes the BEST brownies!"