snack saturday

Classic Chocolate Brownies

8 ounces (2 sticks) unsalted butter
8 ounces premium unsweetened chocolate, cut into 1/4-inch pieces
5 large eggs, at room temperature
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 3/4 cups sugar
1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour (spoon into a dry-measure cup and level off)
One 9x13x2-inch pan lined with buttered foil

Preheat oven to 375°F.
Melt the butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Let the butter get hot and start to sizzle after it's melted. Remove the pan from the heat and add the chocolate all at once. Gently shake the pan to submerge all the chocolate in the butter. Set aside.
Combine the eggs, vanilla, and salt in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. First whisk by hand to mix. Whisk in the sugar by hand.
Whip on medium-high speed for 10 minutes, until very light.
Whisk the butter and chocolate smooth and scrape into the mixer bowl. Whip on the lowest speed just until smooth, then stop the mixer.
Sift the flour onto a piece of paper, bend the paper, and slide the flour into the bowl. Mix again on lowest speed until the flour is absorbed — no longer.
Remove the bowl from the mixer and use a large rubber spatula to give a final mixing to the batter.

Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top.
Bake the brownies until they are firm, but not dry, and the point of a paring knife inserted in the center of the pan emerges with moist crumbs clinging to it, about 35 minutes.

Cool in a pan on a rack. Unmold the brownies to a cutting board and remove the pan and paper. Cover with another board and invert the whole stack. Remove the top board and wrap the brownies on their board in a double thickness of plastic wrap. Keep the brownies at cool room temperature or in the refrigerator overnight before cutting.
Makes 24 square brownies.