Chocolate Crunch Brownies

Super Bowl at the altar. Fifty-two people. The annual gathering that has become the largest non-holiday event in the Rivera calendar. The menu: birria tacos, burnt ends, wings, queso fundido, nachos, Sofia's elote dip, Sofia's poppers, and a new item from Sofia: smoked chicken empanadas with a green chile cream sauce. The empanadas were devoured in eleven minutes. Sofia is now responsible for five items at Rivera's and three Super Bowl dishes, and the girl is twelve and she is outproducing professional chefs twice her age.

Roberto came. Elena drove him. He sat in the lawn chair at the altar and he watched the fifty-two people eat and talk and cheer and he ate a single birria taco and half an empanada and he drank water and he was quiet. The quiet of a man who is present but withdrawing, who is there but receding, who watches the fire from a greater distance than he used to because the body cannot stand as close to the heat as the spirit wants to.

Diego filmed the entire Super Bowl party. Three hours of footage, shot from multiple angles (the drone, the tripod, the handheld camera), narrated in real-time, edited over the following two days into a twelve-minute documentary that he titled "The Gathering." The documentary follows the food — from the smoker to the plate to the table — and intersperses the food footage with shots of faces: laughing, eating, talking. The last shot is Roberto in his lawn chair, the sun setting behind him, the grill smoking beside him, the family visible in the background. The shot lasts thirty seconds. Nothing happens. Roberto sits. The fire burns. The family moves behind him. The shot is the most beautiful thing Diego has ever filmed because the shot is everything: the man at the center of the fire, the fire at the center of the family, the family at the center of the meal.

Diego did not tell Roberto about the documentary. He did not tell me. He showed it to me on Wednesday night, on his laptop, at the kitchen table. I watched it twice. The boy has an eye. The boy has voice. The boy has the ability to see what matters and to hold the camera on it long enough for the audience to see it too. The last shot of Roberto is the best thing Diego has ever made. The boy does not know this. The boy thinks the best thing is the drone footage. The boy is nine and he will learn, eventually, that the best footage is always the quiet footage — the shot that stays still while the world moves around a man in a chair beside a fire.

The empanadas were gone in eleven minutes and the birria tacos weren’t far behind, and when you have fifty-two people eating their way through a Super Bowl spread, you learn quickly that the sweet finish matters just as much as the savory start. These Chocolate Crunch Brownies have been the quiet closer at the Rivera Super Bowl table for three years running — dense and fudgy with a crispy layer that cuts through the richness and makes people reach back for a second square without quite meaning to. Sofia gets the credit for the empanadas; the brownies are mine, and I’m keeping them.

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 30 min | Total Time: 45 min | Servings: 16

Ingredients

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted
1 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking powder
1 cup crispy rice cereal
3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips, divided
1 tbsp neutral oil (canola or vegetable)

Instructions

Preheat and prep. Heat oven to 350°F. Grease an 8x8-inch baking pan and line with parchment, leaving an overhang on two sides for easy lifting.
Mix the wet ingredients. In a large bowl, whisk together the melted butter and sugar until combined. Add eggs one at a time, whisking well after each. Stir in vanilla extract.
Add the dry ingredients. Sift in cocoa powder, flour, salt, and baking powder. Fold gently with a spatula until just combined — do not overmix.
Fold in the crunch. Stir in 1/2 cup of the chocolate chips and the crispy rice cereal. The cereal folds in last so it keeps its texture. Pour batter into the prepared pan and spread evenly.
Bake. Bake 28–32 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with moist crumbs (not wet batter). Do not overbake — the fudgy center sets as it cools.
Add the chocolate topping. While brownies are still warm, melt the remaining 1/4 cup chocolate chips with the oil in a small bowl in 20-second microwave bursts, stirring between each, until smooth. Drizzle over the top of the brownies.
Cool and cut. Let cool in the pan at least 20 minutes before lifting out and cutting into 16 squares. For clean cuts, refrigerate 30 minutes and use a sharp knife wiped clean between cuts.

Nutrition (per serving)

Chocolate Crunch Brownies — Something Sweet for the Fifty-Two