Tintin and the Giant Brownie

In the Tintin story, "The Shooting Star," Tintin ends up on meteorite island which makes everything grow super large....giant mushrooms, giant spiders, EEK. Well if he had had giant brownies, maybe he would have tried to set up camp. Especially if he also had a giant bottle of milk. (Snowy is probably wondering where his giant bone and giant whiskey are.)

Noooo I'm just kidding. It's just that chocolate baked items are hard to photograph in an interesting way (I mean, they're just BROWN), so I figured I would recruit some of the toys we have sitting around the place. Actually, the brownies were baked in mini-muffin pans, and that milk bottle is a mini milk bottle that a pudding I got at a Japanese market came in...it's about 3 inches tall, to give you some perspective!


This is my current favorite brownie recipe, and it's pretty standard except that you melt your butter and then cook it with the sugar before blending it with other ingredients. This is supposed to help give your brownies a shiny crust, although I've never managed to get that sort of crackly crust on the top. I bake them in mini muffin pans because I really like the edges of brownies the best...and I also can't find my square one. Oh well!

Fudge brownies
from King Arthur Flour
8 tablespoons of butter
1 cup of sugar
2 large eggs
5/8 cup unsweetened cocoa, dutch-process
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon instant espresso
1.5 tablespoons vanilla
3/4 cup all purpose flour, sifted

Preheat the oven to 350 F and grease an 8x8" pan, or a mini muffin tin (this recipe makes 24). Melt the butter in a saucepan, then stir in the sugar. Return the pan to the heat and stir until hot and shiny, but not bubbling or boiling. Remove from the heat and set aside. Combine the eggs, cocoa, salt, baking powder, espresso, and vanilla in a medium bowl and stir until combined and smooth. Stir in the butter and sugar mixture until smooth, then stir the flour in. You will have a fairly thick batter, but it should be of a dropping consistency. Pour into your pan or scoop into muffin tins. Bake for about 30 minutes for the pan, and about 15 for the muffin tins, until set, and a skewer inserted comes out with a few moist crumbs. Let cool on a rack, then enjoy with a glass of milk...or tea...or coffee......or just by itself.