Double chocolate brownies

“Rich & gooey brownies with a flakey top”

Every year my wife’s side of the family gets together to celebrate each birthday. For the last couple years I have been in charge of bringing dessert. This all started when I made a chocolate cheesecake for her grandmothers birthday. That may have been the best cake I have ever made, even to this day. It was a three layer cake: it had a entire cheesecake sandwiched between two layers of devils food chocolate cake, frosted with a chocolate fudge icing. This icing was made from whipping chocolate ganache into a lusciously smooth frosting. It was an unbelievable cake and her grandmother absolutely loved it. She exclaimed to me that she had never had anything like it in her life. So ever since that day I’ve had a hard time trying to make any of my desserts live up to that cake.

This year we went up for dinner, no birthday to celebrate, just a time to get together and spend time with family. I decided to make brownies. Now anytime I think something is going to be easy or simple it has a way of turning into a much more involved process than expected.

I’ve made brownies many times before and even have come up with a few recipes of my own. One in particular had mini marshmallows in the batter, which I thought was a unique ingredient. That will be a recipe for another time. All those recipes usually had something else to them either frosting of some sort or cookie dough topping, just to name a few.

I wanted to come up with a recipe for basic brownies that would be rich and gooey and also easy to make. Also they needed to taste great just by themselves. I looked through my grandparents recipes and their cookbooks and surprisingly found a few brownie recipes. None of which sounded special in anyway. I decide to combine my grandmothers recipes with some of my ideas for a brownie recipe.

I finally came up with this recipe and it was incredible! It was rich, gooey and melt in your mouth delicious. It also had the most important characteristic of all…………a flakey top!

Now, the reason that a flakey top is the most important feature for my brownies is because when I was growing up my brothers and I would judge our mothers brownies on wether or not they had a flakey top. The brownies with a flakey top were the best! The ones that didn’t have a flakey top were not liked and my brother even refused to eat them. In a sense I became a brownie aficionado.

I decided to top this brownie recipe with a caramel sauce and flaked sea salt called Fleur de Sel just for an extra special touch. You can use any caramel sauce from the store. I made my own which I will post later. These brownies were a hit with my wife’s family.

These brownies would be wonderful by themselves or even with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Enjoy!!!