The Best Brownies You Have Ever Had (aka salted fudge brownies)

Dudes. First of all, I apologize for the crappy picture but who has time to get artsy fartsy when you have this chunk of chocolate nirvana sitting infront of you. It was calling me.. JESSSICAAAAAAAAAAAA.. so I thought of you first and snapped a pic with my iphone and quickly inhaled this beauty. Now, I have made a LOT of brownies in my lifetime. Infact, brownies are sort of my "thing" in terms of baking. My daughter and I love nothing more than a tray of brownies and a good movie. Srsly. Im no joke.

But this recipe right here.. THIS right here.. from Food and Wine, was knock your ass out of your seat delicious amazing good. Infact when I made these, my daughter took a bite and said to me "I love you just a little more now". No joke. Thats totally what she said.

Again, I found this through that betch over there at eat live run who Im sure has been sent by either one of the girls who tortured me in High School, my mother or my ex to make me fat. And its working. She got it from Tasty Kitchen who got it from Katie Krader at Food and Wine. Whatever. All of us agree, that these are like little bars of crack and I have no control. If I had any more time, these would be made every night.

To prove how out of control we are in my house, we didnt even get to take a picture, however, Im making another batch possibly tonight and will post a pic of those. There is also a pic at the food and wine site

I am going to give you the food and wine original recipe but my notes are in parenthesis. I found that this needed longer to cook than indicated on the recipe and a few others found this to be true as well. I cooked for 50 minutes and nothing was burned. Also be prepared for a thicker batter. Not thin watery pourable batter.
I also used a crazy good cocoa powder from Cocoa Supply since the owner of that company is one of my besties I got a sweet deal on some GREAT cocoa powder.

So here it is, Salted Fudge Brownies (with my recipe modifications)

1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter
2 ounces unsweetened chocolate,
finely chopped 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa
2 cups sugar
3 large eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon sea salt


Preheat the oven to 350°.

Line a 9-inch square metal cake pan with foil, draping the foil over the edges. Lightly butter the foil (I hate messing with that madness so I used pam).

In a large saucepan, melt the butter with the unsweetened chocolate over very low heat, stirring occasionally. Remove from the heat. Whisking them in one at a time until thoroughly incorporated, add the cocoa, sugar, eggs, vanilla and flour. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the surface. Sprinkle the salt evenly over the batter. Using a butter knife, swirl the salt into the batter. (Note: the batter is pretty thick. It takes a little muscle work to stir this up. Its more like folding the salt into the batter than stirring)

Bake the fudge brownies in the center of the oven for about 35 minutes (Seriously I needed 50 minutes), until the edge is set but the center is still a bit soft and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out coated with a little of the batter.

Let the brownies cool at room temperature in the pan for 1 hour, then refrigerate [NO EATING RIGHT AWAY! THIS IS WHERE THE MAGIC HAPPENS!] just until they are firm, about 1 hour.

Lift the brownies from the pan and peel off the foil. Cut the brownies into 16 squares. Serve at room temperature.

Make Ahead The salted fudge brownies can be refrigerated for up to 3 days, and frozen for up to 1 month.