Happy Birthday Alex Kushner

In honor of my good friend Alex's birthday, I thought it would be fun to completely rip off a recipe of his and post it on this blog as my own. :)

Alex Kusher's Seth Klonsky's Famous Chocolate Brownies

4 oz unsweetened baking chocolate (I use Ghirardelli or Scharffen Berger)

2 sticks unsalted butter

4 large whole eggs, room temperature or warmed in their shells for five minutes in lukewarm water

2 t. real vanilla extract

1/2 t. salt

1/2 t. baking powder

2 c. granulated sugar

1 c. all-purpose flour

12 oz semi-sweet chocolate chips

1 c. walnuts (optional, sortof)

• Preheat oven to 325°
  
• Melt together the chocolate and the butter in a double boiler (or the microwave, but be careful not to burn the chocolate)
• In a large bowl, beat the eggs until light in color and texture
• Combine all dry ingredients, chocolate/butter mixture, and eggs together in the bowl and stir to combine.
• Add chocolate chips and walnuts (you're not really considering leaving these out, are you?)
• Bake approximately 30 minutes, or until a cake tester comes out clean.

A few pointers:

• When combining the ingredients, I typically add the chocolate/butter mixture first before the dry ingredients. When you do that though, make sure to add it slowly, so as not to end up cooking the eggs with the hot chocolate.
  
• Once you add the flour, no need to over stir the mixture. You want it thoroughly combined, but over stirring will leave you with a more dense final product.
  
• Don't leave out the walnuts.
  

I hope you enjoy Alex's my recipe. It took me one phone call asking for the recipe years of hard work to perfect.