Brownie Spiders

Happy Halloween! I saw these cuties online and knew they'd be perfect for my daughter's school party today. I hoped to finish them yesterday and post them before Halloween, but clearly that was not meant to be. But the important thing is that I finished them before the party, with time to dry (I wouldn't want the eyeballs to fall off). Although if that happens this afternoon, I'll just claim it was on purpose (me trying to make the spiders scarier). It's all about spin. 

BROWNIE SPIDERS

Yield: approx. 20 spiders

1 (9” x 13”) pan baked brownies

1/2 cup semisweet or bittersweet chocolate chips

2 cups chow mein noodles

candy eye balls (at least 40)

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1.      Use a 1 ½- to 1 ¾-inch circle cookie cutter to cut out circles for the spider "bodies".
Place on wax paper for prep, or place them right on your serving tray.

2.      In a double-boiler, melt the chocolate chips in a medium-sized bowl. Remove 2 tablespoons of the melted chocolate and set aside.

3.      Place a sheet of waxed paper on a sheet pan or large plate. Gently stir the chow mein noodles into the remaining melted chocolate until all of the noodles are coated. Spread the noodles out on the wax paper, separating them as much as possible, and then pop them in the freezer for about 10 minutes to chill and re-harden the chocolate. Once chilled, remove the chocolate covered noodles, and pick out some long ones to use as the spider "legs".

4.      Using the melted chocolate that you set aside and a toothpick, transfer a dot of melted chocolate to the back of each candy eye as the "glue". Place the eyes on the front of the brownie circles.

5.      Dip the tip of each “leg” in melted chocolate and insert 4 legs into each side of each spider body.

6.      Set aside for chocolate “glue” to set (will keep for up to 4 days).

barely adapted from gimmesomeoven.com

adding chow mein noodles to melted chocolate

the original instructions said not to worry about
separating the "legs" completely, but mine really
stuck together, so I recommend separating.

cutting brownie circles

brownie spiders

The original "recipe" has the legs inserted on the top/sides. But I played around and thought they looked better on the sides. Obviously you should go with whatever you like best.
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Fudge Brownies

As much I love my old stand-by brownies, I can't help but wonder sometimes if there's an even better brownie out there (you've heard that old expression the brownie is always chocolatier in someone else's pan). So I tried this recipe from King Arthur (the flour people) because they said it achieves the perfect balance between fudgy and cakey. Their claim: they'll be ultra-moist without crossing the line into gooey/underbaked. Well, I'm happy to report, the claims are true. And even though an argument could be made that even bad brownies are good - great brownies should be so memorable that you often think back fondly about how fudgy and sublime they were and wonder how and when you can get your hands on more of those little chocolate blocks of nirvana on a napkin. (I'm good - I have some in my freezer. You're on your own.)

FUDGE BROWNIES

Yield: 2 dozen

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter

2 1/4 cups sugar

4 large eggs

1 1/4 cups double-dutch dark cocoa or dutch-process cocoa

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon espresso powder

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups King Arthur unbleached all-purpose flour

2 cups chocolate chips

1.      Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly grease a 9" x 13" pan

2.      In a saucepan over low heat, combine the butter and sugar. Heat, stirring, until the butter is melted. Continue to heat just until the mixture is hot (about 110° F to 120° F), but not bubbling; it'll become shiny looking as you stir it. Heating the mixture to this point will dissolve more of the sugar, which will yield a shiny top crust on your brownies.

3.      Crack the 4 eggs into a large bowl, and beat them with the cocoa, salt, baking powder, espresso powder, and vanilla until smooth.

4.      Add the hot butter/sugar mixture, stirring until smooth.

5.      Add the flour and chips, again stirring until smooth. Note: If you want the chips to remain intact in the baked brownies, rather than melting in, let the batter cool in the bowl for about 20 minutes before stirring in the chips.

6.      Spoon the batter into a lightly greased 9" x 13" pan.

7.      Bake the brownies for about 30 minutes, until a cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean, or with just a few moist crumbs clinging to it. The brownies should feel set on the edges, and the center should look very moist, but not uncooked. Remove them from the oven and cool on a rack before cutting and serving.

from kingarthurflour.com

melted butter and sugar

If it looks like a lot, that's because I made a double batch.

For some weird reason, I started melting the butter in a bowl
over simmering water (a double boiler) instead of a regular pot.
So I just went with it (I wasn't willing to transfer the mixture
to a pot and then clean the bowl and pot too).

sifting cocoa powder into the eggs

espresso powder

cocoa powder etc. added to the eggs

The recipe says to mix until smooth, but it's pretty
thick. That's about as "smooth" as I could get it.

adding the butter/sugar mixture

mixing

It looks like a hot mess, but it comes together.

mixed

adding flour and chococlate

batter

batter in pan

baked

brownies!

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Seriously Fudgy Chocolate Brownies

These brownies are so incredibly rich & fudgy and dense...if you froze the whole pan and threw it like a brick, you could do some serious damage (so don't do that). I do like to keep mine frozen after I cut them up though. I suppose if you threw one of the frozen small squares at someone, it might sting a little and leave a fudgy brown welt behind (but don't do that either).

If you're asking yourself what's wrong with me, the answer is, I don't know. Maybe I had a block of frozen brownie dropped on my head as a baby. I'll have to ask my mom.

SERIOUSLY FUDGY CHOCOLATE BROWNIES
Makes 40-50 brownies, depending on size

3 sticks unsalted butter, cut into pieces
12 oz. good-quality bittersweet chocolate, chopped
6 large eggs
1 1/4 cups cake flour (not self-rising)
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder (not Dutch process)
3 cups sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt

1.     Preheat oven to 350° F. Butter and flour a 13- x 9- x 2-inch metal baking pan, knocking out excess flour.

2.     Melt butter with chocolate in a large metal bowl set over a saucepan of barely simmering water, stirring until smooth.

3.     Remove bowl from pan and whisk in eggs, 1 at a time.

4.     Sift together flour and cocoa powder in a separate bowl and stir into batter with sugar and salt.

5.     Pour batter into pan and bake in middle of oven until top is firm and a tester inserted into center comes out with crumbs adhering, 30 to 40 minutes.

6.      Cool completely in pan on a rack, about 2 hours. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours before cutting into squares. Brownies keep, layered between wax paper in an airtight container, 5 days.

barely adapted from The Farm of Beverly Hills (Beverly Hills, CA)

melted chocolate & butter

The better the chocolate, the better the brownies
(do I even need to say that?).

mixing in the dry ingredients
I did add the eggs; I just forgot to take a photo.

batter mixed

batter in pan

baked

You definitely need to chill this in the fridge before cutting.
Once chilled, the entire block can be removed from the pan
(or you can just cut in the pan). I find it a little easier to do
it this way. Notice the left edge has already been cut off
(that's because I'm a freak for the chewy edges and set some aside).

I cut these into pretty small squares because they're so rich.

Behold the extreme fudginess (I'm not
sure a photo can even do it justice).

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