Fabulous Brownies Recipe

This fabulous brownie recipe is for a full-sheet pan, or a hotel pan (as seen in the pictures). Simply scale it according to your needs, or make the whole batch and divide it between your various baking pans.

The batter will rise by about 50 percent, and then fall again during cooling. If you fill a pan with 1 inch of batter, you should get a 1 1/4 inches tall brownie. I prefer a deeper pan so I can fill the batter 2 inches high. This results in a moister center of the brownie.

Here's what we need:

1 pound unsalted butter
20 ozs ( 3 cups) granulated sugar
6 ozs (3/4 cup) water
3 pounds (4/12 ozs bags) semi-sweet chocolate chips
12 large eggs
2 Tablespoons pure vanilla extract
20 ozs (4 3/4 cups) all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt

Optional ingredients: chopped nuts. rum raisins, crumbled marzipan or almond paste, white chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, more chocolate chips...(my favorite!)

Place the butter, sugar and water in a large pot and bring to a boil; whisk until the butter and sugar are dissolved.

Take the pot off the fire and whisk-in half of the chocolate chips until smooth. Then add eggs and vanilla and whisk vigorously until well blended.

Sift flour, soda, cinnamon and salt together and stir into the batter until well combined. Don't over-mix this, please!

With a spatula, stir the second half of the chocolate chips and any optional additions into the batter; pour in the pan and bake at 375 degrees for about 45 minutes, or until a tooth pick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Dust your brownies with powdered sugar and enjoy them with a nice cup of coffee. Of course, these outstandingly rich chocolate brownies are wonderful with berries, ice cream, whipped cream, tiramisu sauce, or - a nice cup of cold milk!