These delicious brownies are for all of the chocolate lovers out there. They are rich and have a double dose of chocolate. Bake them until barely done and they are gooey and decadent. Bake them a little longer and they are just as delicious just not as gooey. Do I need to say anymore?
Ingredients for Double Chocolate Brownies:
1 cup Dutch cocoa powder
3/4 cup butter
2 cups granulated sugar
4 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/4 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon espresso powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup chocolate chips
1 cup chopped walnuts
You will always need a 9" x 13" baking pan and heavy duty foil.
Time-Saving Tip: You can chop the nuts in advance and measure out all of your ingredients. You can also melt the butter and sugar a little while before and set aside for the mixture to cool.
Let's start baking.
Move an oven rack to the middle position and preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Rip off a piece of heavy duty aluminum foil and fully line the baking pan. I find it helps to turn the pan over, and shape the foil to the pan while upside down. I then turn the pan over and slip the foil in the pan. Once this is done, spray the foil, all over with the cooking spray. Set aside.
Cut the butter up into a few pieces. Place the butter and sugar into a microwave safe bowl. Microwave on high for a minute and then stir. Repeat another time or two until the butter is melted and the sugar starts to melt and bubble a bit. Remove the bowl from the microwave and cool, stirring occasionally. Set aside.
Combine the flour, cocoa powder, espresso powder, baking powder and salt in a medium-size bowl. Set aside.
Whisk the eggs and the vanilla together in a large bowl. Once fully whisked start to add the butter mixture. Add a little at a time, maybe in three batches, whisking while adding the sugar mixture to the eggs. You want to make sure you are whisking while especially making the first addition because if the sugar mixture is still slightly warm the whisking will prevent the eggs from scrambling.
In a couple of batches add the flour mixture to the egg mixture. Stir to just combine. Add the walnuts and the chocolate chips and combine. Pour brownie batter into the prepared pan. Using a spatula try to spread the batter evenly in the pan making sure to fill the corners, too.
Bake for 30 minutes. Rotate the pan halfway thru baking. Start checking the brownies at 25 minutes. You should get fudgy brownies at 30 minutes. If you use a toothpick to check for doneness it should have some chocolate and crumbs on it - not wet batter. Since there are chocolate chips in the batter you might want to test with a couple of clean toothpicks in different spots to in case you poked a chocolate chip. The brownies will look shiny and a little cracked. If you want cake like brownies, like my husband, bake until the sides of the brownie start to pull away from the pan a little.
Once the have started to cool using the foil lift the brownies out of the pan and put on a cooling rack or a cutting board. Let cool. You can take away away the foil from the sides. It's fine to keep it on the bottom. Once you start cutting them you can just slip the rest of the foil away.
Once they are cool enough to cut I like to cut the ends off. This way all of the cut pieces look the same. This is a personal preference and does not need to be done. My husband loves these pieces. Once I cut the ends off I then cut the brownie in half right down the middle. Then I have two sections. Then cut each section down the center again, and then each smaller section. It makes it easier to cut even pieces.
They're ready! How delicious do these look? They are just irresistible. These Double Chocolate Brownies are the perfect lunch box treat, after school snack, family gathering dessert, dinner party dessert, holiday dessert, college care package, it's raining outside pick me up...well, I think you get the idea. I promise you will love these.
Enjoy!