INGREDIENTS
½ lb. butter
2 cups sugar
4 eggs, beaten with a fork to blend
½ cup cocoa
1 tablespoon vanilla
⅓ cup flour
½ teaspoon salt
5oz. semi-sweet chocolate, chopped
2oz. bittersweet chocolate, chopped
1/3 cup pecans
DIRECTIONS
- Preheat oven to 350F.
- Spray 13×9 pan with vegetable oil spray.
- Melt butter in microwave. Whisk in sugar, eggs, cocoa, and vanilla. Stir in flour and salt. Add chopped semi-sweet and bittersweet chocolates and pecans.
- Spread batter in prepared pan. Bake for 20-25 minutes, until brownies test MOIST BUT NOT WET.
- Cool before cutting.
TIPS OF THE TRADE
When a recipe calls for semi-sweet chocolate, you can take the chocolate factor up a few notches by combining both semi-sweet AND bittersweet chocolate. Use the same TOTAL amount of chocolate, but divide it into 75% semi-sweet and 25% bittersweet (ie, if a recipe calls for 1 cup of semi-sweet chocolate, use ¾ cup semi-sweet plus ¼ cup bittersweet). You can use this in ANY recipe-cookies, cakes, cheesecakes, etc…WE DO!
If you don’t like nuts, just add more chocolate! Mix chocolates! Mix nuts! Use a flavored syrup instead of vanilla! If you get creative and have fun while you’re baking, it will show in the end product!
You can change the look of a plain bar cookie just by cutting it into a different shape! For the MLB pre-game party, we cut all of the cookies into different shapes for a very elegant presentation: “Luscious Lemon Squares” became “Luscious Lemon Bites” when we cut them in circles with a 1-inch round cookie cutter…”Pecan Pie Bars” became “Pecan Diamonds” when we cut the pan on an angle instead of straight…”The World’s Best Brownies” became architecturally interesting when cut into triangles and arranged both lying down and standing on edge…and the Monkey Bars were cut into bite-size rectangles so there was an assortment of every shape on each serving tray.
