For years I've been hearing about Katharine Hepburn's marvelous, fudgy brownie recipe. It got to where I'd see it on just about every major recipe site and cooking blog. I finally decided I had to try it.
Apparently it is a Hepburn family recipe, which Ms. Katharine shared with Liz Smith in a 1975 interview for Ladies' Home Journal. I haven't seen a copy of this article, so I haven't confirmed that, but oh my goodness I would like to.
I eat gluten and dairy free, so I made this with butter substitute and gluten free flour. The results were yummy, even with the substitutions.
The ingredients:
Flour, sugar, salt, vanilla, eggs, butter and unsweetened baking chocolate. All the basics.
Here's what I did:
I melted 8 tablespoons of butter and 2 squares of unsweetened chocolate in a small saucepan over low to medium-ish heat.
See how delicious and chocolatey it already looks?
Then I took the mixture off the stove and beat in one cup of sugar, two eggs and 1/4 teaspoon vanilla. Get it mixed together really well.
I got pretty good results using a small spatula to mix things up. It was a challenge to keep all that stuff in such a little pan, so maybe something slightly bigger than I used would be best.
Then I stirred in 1/4 cup flour and 1/4 teaspoon salt. The recipe also calls for one cup of chopped walnuts, but I don't like anything competing with the chocolate in my brownies, so I left them out.
The recipe suggests pouring the batter into a greased and floured 8x8 inch pan. I love how much easier clean-up is with parchment paper, so I used that to line the pan instead.
Then I popped them in a 325 degrees farenheit oven for 40 minutes.
The results:
Slightly chewy, with a bit of crispness on the outside and so fudgy and chocolatey.
It took me a few tries to get the results I wanted. The first batch was a bit too crisp, but okay. Then the second batch was so shiny and crispy that it was like eating hard candy. I finally figured out that I was just baking them slightly too long. My oven runs hot, so slightly under 40 minutes ended up working for me. It is definitely a good idea to keep an eye on them after about 35 minutes.
I liked this recipe. It's easy for a fairly novice baker like myself and it doesn't take much time to make. This will definitely be my new go-to recipe for future evening chocolate cravings.
Here's the full recipe, which I got from Epicurious (I haven't seen much, if any variation among different versions on the Web).
·
1 stick (8 tablespoons)
butter
·
2 squares unsweetened
chocolate
·
1 cup sugar
·
2 eggs
·
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
·
1/4 cup all-purpose
flour
·
1/4 teaspoon salt
·
1 cup chopped walnuts
(optional)
1. Melt together 1 stick butter and 2 squares
unsweetened chocolate and take the saucepan off the heat.
2. Stir in 1 cup sugar, add 2 eggs and 1/2
teaspoon vanilla, and beat the mixture well.
3. Stir in 1/4 cup all-purpose flour and 1/4
teaspoon salt. (In the original recipe, 1 cup chopped walnuts is added here as
well.)
4. Bake the brownies in a buttered and floured
8-inch-square pan at 325°F for about 40 minutes.
Give it a try--and let me know what you think if you do!
Hepburn Image Source
