Browned butter brownies for friends and enemies

Hello, my lovely friends! Tonight, I'd like to share with you one of my favorite recipes: browned butter brownies. They are legendary and browning butter, while time-intensive, is a useful and delicious social skill.  For a very helpful step-by-step tutorial, click here.

Potential uses for these brownies: 

1. If you have a mortal enemy and are looking to bump them off in a kindly fashion,
2. If you need to butter someone up before asking them for a large sum of money (oh snap that just happened),
3. If you're trying to seduce a foodie,
4. If you're trying to seduce someone who has a mouth and likes to put food inside it,
5. If you need a present for a teacher or friend,
6. NOMS.

Brown butter browniesModified from Alice Medrich, published in Bon Appetit, Feb. 2011Makes 16 brownies

• INGREDIENTS
• 2½ sticks of unsalted butter (Don’t freak out! You’ll only really use half of it.)

• 1 cup sugar

• ¾ cup unsweetened cocoa powder (you’d be amazed at how much difference there is in cocoa powders; get a good quality one)

• ¼ teaspoon salt

• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

• 2 teaspoons water

• 2 large eggs, cold

• 1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour

• 1 cup walnuts, lightly toasted

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 325 F.

1. Line an 8×8-inch baking pan with aluminum foil, pressing it into the corners of the pan and leaving a couple inches of overhang. (You’re going to use this to lift the brownies out later. Genius! This is what you get for using recipes written by real professionals.) Rub a little butter over the foil to grease it.

1. Melt and brown butter, as described above.

1. While the butter is still in the early stages of cooking, combine the sugar, cocoa and salt in a fairly heatproof bowl.

1. Have a second heatproof cup or bowl ready. When the milk solids are beautifully browned, either pour or scoop out ½ cup (8 tablespoons) of the butter into that cup, being careful to keep all the browned bits with you in the pan. Then all at once dump the butter from the pan into the bowl with the cocoa mixture. Scrape in all the browned bits stuck to the pan, unless they’re burnt. Add the vanilla and water, and stir to blend. It will come together like rough concrete. The mixture should be fairly hot; let cool for 5 minutes. (You get to keep the extra butter for other uses; store in fridge.)

1. Beat in one of the eggs vigorously. It will look horrible. The butter will probably separate out of the cocoa/sugar mass, and it will start to make you very sad. About now, you will be cursing. Beat in the second egg, though, and watch it all come back together. Egg saves the day!

1. When your mixture looks shiny and uniform, add the flour and stir until blended. The recipe continues: “Beat vigorously 60 strokes.” And seriously, they’re not kidding. As you work it, the gluten will develop in the flour and make it firmer and tougher. Just take a breath, hold on and crank it.

1. Stir in the nuts, and scrape the batter into the baking pan. Bake 25 minutes, or until a toothpick in the center comes out not quite clean (there should be a few moist crumbs sticking to it). Cool the pan on a rack, then lift the brownies out with the foil. Cut into four strips, and quarter those to make 16 brownies.

Pictures to follow.