Deeply Darkly Chocolate

It's always fun to make a treat for a friend for their birthday. Since I'm no longer doing dairy, it's extra nice to be able to bake with butter since the resulting sweet will be given away and not tempt me.

Yesterday I made these dark chocolate, intensely chocolate brownies to give away, but saved a few for Straight Shooter, who told me that they were delicious and very chocolaty. They were moist and fairly dense, but still had crumbs and the stout just intensified the chocolate sensation. You wouldn't know there was stout in them if no one told you. They were fine as is, but I suspect that a nice ganache topping wouldn't go amiss, either, should you choose to make them very decadent.

Except for chopping the chocolate these are really easy to make. I didn't even use a mixer. I just stirred everything together. If you cut these out with a heart cutter after they baked it would make an awesome Valentine's gift...and you could eat the scraps.

Stout Brownies
From Cooking Light Magazine

1/3 cup flour
1/4 cup cocoa
1/2 teaspoon salt
4.5 oz. bittersweet chocolate, divided
1/4 cup butter, cut into pieces
2 tablespoons canola oil
1/3 cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 egg
1 egg yolk
2/3 cup stout

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line an 8"x8" baking pan with aluminum foil, then spray pan with cooking spray. Set aside.

Sift together the flour, cocoa and salt in a bowl or onto a sheet of waxed paper. Set aside.

Divide the chocolate into a 3 oz. portion and a 1.5 oz. portion. Finely chop the 1/5 oz portion.

In a large bowl, melt the butter and chunked up 3 oz. of the chocolate. I used a microwave on 1/2 power, 1 minute at a time, stirring well after each minute. Add the oil and stir to combine. Cool slightly.

Add the sugars and mix well. Add the vanilla, egg and egg yolk and mix well. Add the stout and mix well. Add the flour mixture and mix just to combine. Fold in the remaining 1.5 oz. chocolate, chopped fine.

Put the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 25-30 minutes. A toothpick inserted in the center should have a few moist crumbs clinging to it when brownies are done.

Remove from oven and cool on a rack 10 minutes. Use foil to remove brownies from pan. Cut into squares and serve.

Note: The ingredients are as listed in the magazine, but the instructions are just a bit different.