Food, cooking, eating, and me

Brownies, brownies, brownies. No apologies, I make them super-chocolatey, adapting a recipe from the James Beard cookbook, American Cookery.

The flour I use is the same as for most of the things I bake—3 parts white rice flour to 1 part sweet rice flour. Aside from that, I use the maximum amount of chocolate in the recipe and reduce the sugar to make the effect more intense than sweet.

I am sensitive to xanthan gum, so I don’t use it, and I find that most sweet baked goods don’t need it.

So…

• 1 stick butter (or 7/8 cup coconut oil, if you can’t handle the dairy of butter
• 4 ounces unsweetened chocolate
• 1-1/2 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 3/4 cup white rice flour
• 1/4 cup sweet rice flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Optional:

• 1 cup walnut meats, broken
• 3/4 cup dry fruit, soaked in 2 ounces of liquid (water, brandy, or juice) until the liquid is absorbed (OK to hurry by heating this, covered, in the microwave.)
• chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 325°F. Grease a nonstick or silicone square 9″ x 9″ or rectangular pan.

Melt together butter and chocolate, stirring until smooth. Add sugar. Stir until smooth. Add eggs and vanilla. Stir until blended thoroughly. Add flour and salt, then nuts and/or dried fruit, if using. Scrape into the prepared pan and bake about 45 minutes, or until the center is no longer liquid.

Remove from pan when almost cold and cut into squares. How many pieces you can cut depends on how many of the optional ingredients you added.