Everybody: have some brownies
By: Clara Fasciglione
Tags: Brownies, Storytelling, Recipe, Chocolate, Baking

this recipe brownies could look like this

Recently I’ve changed my all time brownie recipe. Brownies Posta, so I called them. Posta is an Argentinian slang word for saying “for real”. It used to irritate me a little when people made chocolate cake and called it a brownie. What a disrespect for my fellow all-time classic treat, the BROWNIE.

I started baking brownies almost daily at the age of 14, after my father passed. I channeled my grief through baking. So maybe this gives you an idea to why I took it so personally.

At the beginning I always followed recipes strictly, and then as my confidence grew, I started making little adjustments driven by my in site criteria. When I started La Cocina de Cla, I chose to stick with my favorite one and repeat it. We, as customers, don’t usually like change. Or how would you feel if you came in to a Bakery and fell in love with this particular item, and next day, the baker changes it. And again and again and again. It would be unreliable. You like what you like. But now, far away from my country and Brand / Kitchen, I started again to experience more playfully. Not worried about failing (whatever that means to me) and open to new flavors and experiences. Of course, a brownie it’s a brownie, but let me tell you, same recipe, different oven temperature, leads to different results. Same recipe, same temperature, different choice of baking pan, different result as well. So as you grow through experience with the years of cooking and tasting, as does your awareness in details. Like any other specific subject or matter you choose to put your hours and consciousness into.

I think that is called profession? “Practice makes Master”…or so I have heard.

I still cook or bake as an outlet. It comes naturally and it is a safe place for me. I run around the kitchen with no boundaries. I follow my own truth. I hear peoples opinions with no attachments. I use my own common sense to hear, and take or leave advice with such freedom like I don’t do in other aspects of my life, but I wish and I work, for this to improve every day.

SO… all that being said, here it is, my most recent favorite Brownie recipe:

Brownies Posta, La Cocina de Cla

200 grs (7 oz) semi dark chocolate

150 grs (5.3 oz) unsalted butter

4 eggs

350 grs (12.35 oz) sugar

120 grs (4.23) all purpose flour

5 grs (1 tsp) sea salt

*Optional: 100 grs (3.5 oz) walnuts, finely chopped

Ingredients are key, so try to always get the best possible. The finest of chocolates, organic butter and flour, farm fresh eggs, etc. You know what’s good. Just choose it. Grab it. Don’t double think, cause excuses will arise to go get that one that’s next to it but its half the price. Food is your fuel. Your pocket is your weapon.

You will need a 9 inch baking pan, at least 1.5” deep. Cut a 9” parchment paper disc and place it on the bottom of your baking pan. Preheat your oven to 375 F. Use the middle rack to bake your brownies.

Whisk together flour and salt, and set aside for later.

Melt the butter and chocolate and let it cool till room temperature. You may test the temperature with your lips, and it needs to feel warm.

In the mean time, beat eggs and sugar with a hand or stand mixer at high speed for about 3 to 5 minutes. It will double in size and feel kinda firm.

Pour about a cup of the eggs batter into the chocolate and mix together. This will air the chocolate a little. Make it less dense. Now we can pour all this into the eggs and combine. You can use your hand or stand mixer on low speed.

Incorporate the dry ingredients with a spatula.

*You may add the walnuts as your last step. Honestly I haven’t been using them. I’ve been loving the brownies kinda like if they were a very good chocolate bar. And this is what to do next…

this were a little undercooked, and a blend with peanut butter. pretty darn good.

Bake the brownies for about 40 to 45 minutes. It will form a thick crust on top and if you shake them, they only have to slightly wobble underneath the surface. This is when they’re done.

Now let them sit on the counter till cool and then, demold. Wrap and store in fridge for a couple hours before serving.

Sample it cold. Enjoy it whenever you want the most. My favorite time is after lunch paired with good coffee or late at night with a nice cup of herbal tea. A little square goes long ways. And anyway, the first bite taste the same than the next hundred.

The pictures are different batches of brownies, just to illustrate how wide the spectrum on baking could be, and there is not real failure. Somewhere along the path, you will love ones more than others, and perhaps then, stick to them. Or not…

Also I feel it is necessary to mention that this recipe was actually discovered unintentionally. I was in Villa Traful, my home in Patagonia, with non of my regular baking utensils and I wanted to bake brownies. I used what was there, and I cooked them in a very old gas oven that kinda freak me out. I overcame my expectations and found the result was perspective changing.

I would be happy to hear from you. Please let me know in the comments if you have any questions regarding this recipe.

Bests,

Cla