American 'Crack' Brownies

My job is now seemingly Official Brownie Baker for the Germans. It entails making pans upon pans of my previously named "Euuu, gross! American Brownies" and converting Germans one by one into insane brownie-craving fiends. I swear I don't put crack in them. I swear!

Bunny had to take some "cake" to his class (some multi-office training thing at work) and volunteered me as the brownie baker. Who needs kids when you have a husband. You think your 8-year-old is the only one who informs you at 7pm "I have to take 3 dozen brownies to class tomorrow"? Nope. I'm now making them for his coworkers, our neighbors, relatives, friends. Everyone raves about them and begs for the recipe because they've never tasted anything this incredibly delicious and amazing. (Again, I swear I am not putting crack in them! We're just talking about GERMANS who've been deprived of anything but gummi bears, Lebkuchen and dense, flavorless cheesecake their whole lives, the poor bastards. They reacted pretty much the same to graham cracker pie crust, so what can I say. They also have a preconceived notion that everything "American" is "too sweet" and nasty, so their brains cannot compute the sensory input of gooey homemade peanut brownies like we've had since the age of 2. Again, no crack.)

Given this, once again I'll put the recipe here so other American expats can bake them and gain blissful worshippers amongst the Germans, who will hold you in esteemed awe. The one problem I can see is PAN SIZE, though. The recipe is for an 8"x8" square American pan. If you're using anything but that, the baking time and thickness will be off, so you might have to experiment. Bunny, being German, came up with recipe adjustments for common German pan sizes (if you feel like doing math), so I'll put that at the bottom:

Aunt D's Amazing American Brownies
(i.e. 'Crack Brownies' - without the crack, I swear!)

100g zartbitter Kuveture [US: high quality bittersweet couveture chocolate]
100g Butter [US: 1/2 cup unsalted butter]
1/8 TL Salt [US: a pinch to 1/8tsp salt]
1 packet Vanillezucker [US: 1tsp vanilla extract]
2 EL unsweetened Cocoa Powder [US: 2Tbsp (Dutch-processed cocoa powder)]
175g sugar [US: 3/4 to 1 full cup, to your taste]
2 eggs
3/4 TL Backpulver [In Germany: 3/4 tsp German baking powder / US: just shy of 1/2tsp American baking powder]
100g Flour - type 405 [US: 3/4 cup (all-purpose flour)]
nuts (peanuts, walnuts, pecans) if desired [Germans seem to love them with peanuts]

Preheat oven to 175C (350F) [German ovens: bottom heat only]

Heat chocolate in glass bowl in microwave or in double-boiler just barely until melted. (Remove from heat.) Add butter to chocolate and gently stir until also melted. Using fork or whisk, stir in cocoa powder, salt, vanilla and sugar. Make sure mixture isn't still hot to the touch. Warm is ok, but not hot. If necessary, let it cool for up to 5 minutes. Next add eggs and stir/whisk just until incorporated well. Do the same with the baking powder. Immediately add flour (and nuts, if desired) and stir just until mixed. Batter will be quite thick and gooey.

With a spatula (or whatever) put evenly into a greased (I use a tad of Palmin or Crisco) 8"x8" square American cake/brownie pan and bake at 175C for 27 minutes. They'll probably seem too soft in the middle, but don't let that fool you. Do not overbake them or they'll be too dry once cooled! Allow to cool for as long as you can stand it, cut into squares and enjoy.

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Nerd Adjustments: If you're a total math nerd with way too much time on your hands (or you're just too darn Germanized) and want to calculate exact ingredient amounts for different sized German pans rather than just adjusting your bake time and trying for the best:

25cm x 11cm rectangular loaf pan: multiply ingredients by a factor of 0.6875 (so 100g of kuveture becomes 68.75 grams instead). Do this for all the other ingredients and decrease your bake time to somewhere around 21 minutes.

26cm round springform (13cm radius): multiply ingredients by a factor of 1.33 (so 175g of sugar becomes 233 grams). Increase your bake time by a 3-5 minutes.

UPDATE SEP 9, '08: Kokoapulver (cocoa powder) is found on the tea & coffee aisle in most German stores. Look for a brown or tan box a bit bigger than a paperback book.