Noor Cakes ~ baked with love: Salted Browned Butter Brownies

Decadent chewy gooey browned butter brownies. The ultimate combination of sweet and salt creates love at first bite. The best brownies so far in my record!

I do not think I need to repeat my love for brownies, but I have to say I am truly in love with these salted browned butter brownies. I have always thought that my recipe for American brownies is the best; until now. Actually my recipe is really good, and it is still in my favorites, it is just that this new recipe is now my new top favorite brownies recipe. It has all the things I could ask for in a brownie; the gooeyness, the chewiness, the intense cocoa flavor and of course the salty taste combined with the sweet chocolate. I hitted this recipe at my work, I often google up cakes and other baked goodies to look at in between, and I found a blog; Catalystcupcakes which seemed interesting, I scrolled a little down and there they was; "Browned Butter Brownies". Usually I am not very open to try new brownies recipes as I have been very much satisfied with the one I have, but this time it had a few things added which seemed quite interesting, such as coffee powder and the method was also different. Beside that the good words from the blogger praising the brownies made me note down the recipe. And yes, I was really excited to try these out!

I am not really fond of trying out brownies recipes which calls for chocolate, mainly because that is an ingredient which is not always available so I love recipes that only calls for cocoa powder. And that may be one of the reasons this recipe attracted me so much. I explored that coffee powder actually is a super ingredients which enhances the chocolate flavor and combines into a delicious flavor which is difficult to describe. It is like it kind of tame and balance the overpowering cocoa flavor bringing out the best. Beside that, it has the browned butter instead of regular melted butter. Browned butter adds an caramellish and nutty flavor which combines so amazingly with the salty taste. I used extra salted butter, and it is very important that you use salted butter or the flavors wont come out right. Before Christmas holiday I made brownies using my regular recipe and I always lick the bowl and this time the batter was just tasting plain and watery. I was really surprised and thought something was wrong with my taste buds as the so flavorful and delicious brownie batter was tasting nothing! And the baked brownies did not taste any better (bland!) and I was really clueless of the reason as I made them exactly as I always do. Then, I came to find out that mom had bought unsalted butter by a mistake!!? Oh my goodness, it is actually first then I got to know the importance of salt in food and baked stuff. I have never used unsalted butter in my baking, I love the salted butter. Salt really enhances the flavors, so do not even try to bake brownies without salted butter ever, or if you do not have it available, make sure you put enough salt in the batter!

Baking aside, I am having exam in less than three days and what I am actually doing is to sit here and blogging about yummlicious brownies! I guess I have to rest the baking for a few days now until I have finished my exam and give myself another amazing browned butter brownies treat after the exam is done! What say? And guess what, all the snow has melted completely, the weather is so amazing.. almost feels like spring is around the corner!

Makes about 20 pieces

I n g r e d i e n t s

141 g butter, salted
281 g sugar
3 tbsp cocoa powder
1 tsp coffee powder, instant
1/4 tsp salt
2 tbsp water
1 tsp vanilla essence
2 eggs
60 g allpurpose flour
40-50 g fruit and nuts of choice, optional

Preheat the oven to 160 C / 325 F and grease an square tin, about 20 x 20 cm

1. In a small bowl, have sugar, cocoa powder, salt and coffee powder, whisk until combined
2. In another bowl have the eggs, water and vanilla essence, whisk together and set aside
3. In a medium sized sauce pan, melt the butter over medium heat
4. When the butter start skimming, stir the butter carefully for about 2-4 minutes until the butter starts forming brown bits at the bottom
5. Remove from heat
6. Have the dry ingredients (sugar and cocoa mixture) in the browned butter and stir until combined (the mixture will look muddy)
7. Let cool for about 5 minutes
8. Have half of the egg mixture in the butter mixture and mix together quickly until well combined using a hand whisk
9. Have rest of the egg mixture and stir until well blended (Batter is supposed to be thick and smooth)
10. Add the flour and stir vigorously (20 strokes), scrape down the sides, combine the batter (the batter will be thick and slowly become more even)
11. Again, stir vigorously for another 20 times, scrape down the sides, combine the batter (batter is now supposed to be shiny and smooth)
12. Stir vigorously for a last time, again 20 times (total 60 strokes), scrape down the sides, combine the batter
13. Add chopped nuts and fruits and pour the batter into the prepared tin

Bake in a moderately hot oven at 160 C / 325 F for about 30-40 minutes till a pin pierced comes out almost clean (small crumbs on the pin, but not runny batter!)

Let cool completely (at least 1 hour) before you cut the brownies into pieces!

I am in love.. with these brownies <3