{TWD} [rewind] Quintuple, no, Sextuple Chocolate Brownies!

This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie challenge, chosen by Dolores of Chronicles in Culinary Curiosity is Blueberry-Sour Cream Ice Cream, on page 434 of Baking From My Home to Yours. Those without an ice cream maker could choose to make a “rewind” of any of the previous challenges.

I looked around in the house, but the ice cream maker we received as a wedding present 27 years ago appears to be long gone!* If you want to see how the ice cream turned out, check out the blogroll of TWD Bakers.

I had fun choosing which of the completed recipes to bake for my "rewind". Dorie’s Quintuple Chocolate Brownie recipe was the second challenge for TWD, back in January when there were just 3 members! I’ve wanted to make these ever since seeing the picture on page 98. My chocolate-allergic husband was out of town, so I could bake them without guilt. My plan was to bring them, together with the Black and White Banana Loaf, to our book group meeting last Thursday.


The recipe is posted here. The best part: I had all of the ingredients right in the house. All five kinds of chocolate! (cocoa, unsweetened, bitter/semisweet, milk, and white) Well, most of the chocolate I had on hand was pretty pedestrian. The only milk chocolate I had was some Hershey’s Kisses, which I chopped into chunks. But at least I didn't need to go to the store!

The brownies came together really well. Smooth as silk. I love my chocolate DARK, so I opted for bittersweet rather than semisweet chocolate in the batter (along with the cocoa and the unsweetened chocolate).

But five kinds of chocolate isn’t enough for me! So I slightly reduced the amount of the milk chocolate chunks, and added chopped semisweet chunks.

Some of the people in our book group don’t like nuts in baked goods, so I made half of the batter without nuts and tossed in even more semisweet chocolate chunks on that half. For the half with nuts, I used salted cashews per Dorie’s suggestion.

The brownies cooked very fast - in fact I may have over-cooked them by a few minutes - and they looked great coming out of the oven. Just beautiful.

A little voice told me to leave off the white chocolate glaze. Boy, do I wish I’d listened! But I decided to soldier on with the recipe just as Dorie wrote it.

So: I boiled the cream, poured over the chopped white chocolate. Stirred then spread over the brownies. Hmm, mine seemed a bit thin. And not very much of it. Dorie’s picture looked so thick and, well, thick. I stuck it in the fridge for the prescribed 30 minutes. The glaze was still very runny. Then it hit me: The recipe called for 6 ounces of white chocolate but I only used 3. Drat.

I carefully spooned off the runny glaze, then sopped it up with paper towels. Called to change the time of my dinner reservations. Sopped some more.

Luckily, Whole Foods was two doors down from the restaurant, so after dinner I stopped in and picked up some Callebaut white chocolate. If I was going to re-do the glaze, it would be with good ingredients!

After chopping the chocolate (6 ounces this time), boiling more cream, and melting, I spread the glaze and somehow managed to get the brownies back into the pan in one big piece, to be cut the next day for my meeting.

The Verdict:
These brownies were simply the BEST! Out-of-this-world delicious. The flavor of all the chocolates really was amazing – very deep and dark (I'm glad I used the bittersweet chocolate. Also, I used quite a bit of coffee). I liked the nuts, and the glaze smoothed and melded the various chocolate and coffee tastes. Everyone at the meeting loved the brownies; they were happy to divide up the leftovers of brownies and marble loaf.

I think the next time I make these - and there WILL be a next time - here's what I'll do:

• Use an 8x8in pan to get thicker brownies.
• Check for done-ness sooner.
• Skip the glaze and see how they taste.
• Keep the semisweet chips.
• Use high quality for all of the various chocolates.

I can’t imagine how fabulous the brownies would be then!

[*I was cleaning the garage yesterday, and found my ice cream maker! So now I will look forward to making the blueberry ice cream as a future rewind...]