Bonnie's Birthday & Salted Fudge Brownies

Yesterday was Bonnie's birthday, so we made pizzas and brownies! This recipe for Salted Fudge Brownies from Food&Wine caught my eye. They're as easy to make as any brownie recipe (ok, maybe you need a couple more ingredients than out of the box brownies, but they're still dead simple) and they taste like, well, fancy! Yes, I am declaring these Fancy Brownies!!

I did pretty much everything per the original recipe, except that I don't have a 9" square metal pan, so I used my 8x13" metal pan instead with no disasters, just a shorter cook time (think 25 minutes instead of 35).

Salted Fudge Brownies

(yield: 12 big square brownies)

1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter

2 oz unsweetened chocolate, chopped fine

1/4 c plus 2 tbs unsweetened cocoa (Dutch processed - look for "Alkali" under Ingredients)

2 c sugar

3 large eggs

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1 c AP flour

12 tsp fine seat salt

Preheat oven to 350 F

1) Line a metal cake pan (8x13" metal) with foil and grease the foil with butter.

2) In a nonstick pan melt the butter and chocolate over the lowest heat, stirring occasionally.

3) Remove from heat and whisk in - one at a time- cocoa, sugar, eggs, vanilla and flour making sure each is incorporated before moving to the next.

4) Spread into pan, then sprinkle with the sea salt. Swirl the sea salt into the batter with a butter knife. Smooth top and pop in the oven.

5) Bake for 25 minutes - edge will be set, center a bit soft and if you insert a toothpick it will come out with a bit of batter.

6) Cool at room temperature for an hour, then refrigerate an hour more. Lift from pan the foil, remove foil and cut!