I've been out-baked!

I enjoy baking... hell, I enjoy cooking. Hubby isn't too thrilled with me cooking, as I tend to dirty every dish in the house and destroy the kitchen. But I'm a really good cook, so he deals with the mess.

When I first met Hubby, he could barely boil water. I kid you not, one day he asked me to make him pudding and handed me the box of instant pudding. After I stopped laughing, I asked him to look at the directions and walked out of the kitchen. That was his first foray into the kitchen, and he's been slowly getting better at it.

Earlier in the week, he was craving brownies. He didn't even ask, he just picked up the King Arthur Baking Book and started cooking. An hour later, there were the most incredible, moist, chewy, fudgy brownies covered in vanilla ice cream. I've officially been out baked! I've got to post the recipe, they were THAT good.

Brownies from King Arthur's Flour Baking Companion

6 oz unsweetened baking chocolate

1.5 sticks butter

5 eggs

2 tsp vanilla

1/2 tsp salt

2.5 cup sugar

1/3 cup light corn syrup

1 1/3 cup flour

1 1/2 cup chopped nuts, mini marshmallows or mini chips (optional, yeah, right! Todd did pecans)

Pre-heat oven to 375 and grease a 9x13 pan

Melt chocolate and butter together in a sauce pan, let cool slightly

Beat together eggs, vanilla, salt, sugar and corn syrup until light and fluffy (this takes a few minutes)

Stir flour into melted chocolate. Fold chocolate batter into egg batter, stir in nuts/chips

Spread batter in pan and brush top w/ 1 tbsp milk

Bake 35 minutes until top is crisp, but a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out covered in chocolate.

Cool several HOURS (ummm, we waited until they were slightly warm) then cut. Cuts easier with a plastic knife or a metal knife sprayed with Pam.

If you don't have the corn syrup, you can make them without, but they won't be as moist. You can probably add some instant espresso (maybe 1 tbsp) and they would be pretty darn close to the Starbuck espresso brownies.