No way….not these!

   I’ve been kicking this idea around for a few months playing with which types of alternative flours would be best to reach the texture I was looking for since I already had a perfect product I could just purchase…but where’s the fun in that I ask?  You see there are these awesome gluten-free brownies I am slightly (COMPLETELY) obsessed with…and like the perfect stuffed Chicken Marsala at one of my favorite eateries this brownie’s secrets MUST be exposed…free the from the constraints of secrecy…exposed to daylight…its “honor-bound” privacy broken…left in tatters on my counter-top.

This recipe has gone thought really just 2 or 3 attempts before I hit it spot on. No 3,985,738 loaves…no 10 different types of flour…which in a way was kind of disappointing in that the challenge was not as challenging as I thought it was going to be. But some times it’s a good thing to get right to it.

The awesomeness of these brownies is that they don’t have that Necco chocolate wafers” taste/texture that most chocolate gluten-free items tend to have…These have the “in your face” full flavor mouth explosion of chocolate going on. Like with all my recipes the star of the dish, in this case the chocolate flavor, demands the best quality you can afford.  Because I wanted the chocolate to be flavor forward I started with a 40ish year old recipe from my old stand by cookbook with limited ingredients, the original version having only 6/7 components -depending on if you are a nuts or not kind of brownie eater. While these brownies are intense they are not overly sweet.

–Intense Gluten free Brownies–

1 c Butter -room temp

2 c Sugar

4 Eggs

1 c Red Mill Rice Flour

1/2 c Red Mill Almond Flour

6 oz unsweetened Chocolate (chopped)

1 1/2 Ts Vanilla Bean paste

1 TS Kosher Salt

1 c chopped nuts (our choice walnuts, pecans,Brazilian nuts…)

–Optional Icing–

2 c powder sugar

1 c cocoa powder

1/4 c Butter (softened-real soft!)

1 TS Vanilla Bean Paste

1/2 c milk (aprox)

pinch of Kosher Salt

  Using a metal bowl that will fit over a medium-sized sauce pan put about

tiny bubbles people…

an inch of water in the pan and set to heat on med-low heat until water just simmers. You do not want a rolling boil and you do not want the water to touch the bottom of the metal bowl.

Put the chopped chocolate as well as the butter into the bowl and stir as it melts to combine the two together. Remove when about 80% of the chocolate has melted.

As the chocolate mixture continues to melt you will need to beat the eggs together with the vanilla bean paste and the salt.

Give the chocolate/butter a good stir making sure all the chocolate has melted, stir in the sugar. By this point your chocolate should be cool enough to mix in the eggs. If you feel the chocolate is still to hot mix a small amount into the eggs to temper them before stirring into the chocolate/butter/sugar. You don’t want to over mix, just stir till combined.

Dump in both flours and the nuts, stir until just combined.

Do all three at one time to minimize the mixing

Pour into a 9″x 13″, spread to edges, drop pan on the counter to even out then off to the hot box at 350 for 25 minutes.

Tear off a piece of parchment paper that will fit the top of your pan place over brownies .and cover with a second pan of the same size and press. If you don’t have a second pan not worries you don’t have to press, I just like the end result of doing so.

If using the icing you want to prep it while the brownies are baking so that once you  press (or not) you can  spread the icing onto the hot brownies.

–Icing–

Ok this is super easy…dump all the ingredients into  mixer and stir by hand to moisten the powered sugar and cocoa so it doesn’t fly up as you beat the snot out of the icing. It will turn a lighter color and will be fluff-ier if you will when ts done. It’s really hard to mess up…

Plop it on there and spread it out

Coffee…all it needs is coffee…..

Now go play with your food.

WikiJan