The Fudgiest Flourless Brownies

February, and Valentine\'s Day is celebrated with Robert\'s annual gift — this year, a small wooden rattle, hand-carved, cherry wood, for Will. The rattle is Robert\'s first grandparent creation, the first thing he has built for a person under one year old, and the building-for-the-small is the tenderness, and the tenderness is the love that does not require walnut or precision but only the willingness to make something small enough for a small hand to hold.

James sent photographs of Will every day — Will sleeping, Will eating, Will staring at the ceiling with the particular focus of a person who has just discovered ceilings and who considers them remarkable. The photographs are the visual record of a life that is twelve days old and that is already the most photographed life in the Blackwood family\'s history.

I have been writing the blog with renewed energy — the birth of a grandchild having opened a new vein of material, the material being not just recipes but the life that the recipes accompany, the life that now includes a grandson who will someday stand at a stove and taste the she-crab soup and not know that the recipe traveled from a parsonage in Beaufort to a kitchen in Charleston to a book on a shelf to whatever kitchen Will builds for himself.

I made Mama\'s pound cake — the simple cake, the February cake, the cake of a woman who is a grandmother now and who bakes the cake that her mother baked because the baking is the chain and the chain now extends to Will.

I made Mama’s pound cake for the chain — but when the cake was gone and the photographs of Will kept coming and the rattle sat on the counter where Robert had left it, I found myself back at the stove, reaching for something fudgy and uncomplicated, something that needed no flour and no ceremony, only butter and chocolate and the willingness to put it together. These flourless brownies are that kind of recipe: the kind a new grandmother makes when she has run out of words and the kitchen is the only place that still makes sense.

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 25 minutes | Total Time: 35 minutes | Servings: 16

Ingredients

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut into pieces
8 oz good-quality dark chocolate (70% cacao), roughly chopped
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
3 large eggs, room temperature
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder, sifted
1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (optional, for extra fudginess)

Instructions

Preheat and prepare. Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C). Grease an 8x8-inch baking pan and line with parchment paper, leaving an overhang on two sides for easy lifting.
Melt butter and chocolate. Combine the butter and chopped dark chocolate in a medium heatproof bowl set over a saucepan of barely simmering water. Stir gently until fully melted and smooth. Remove from heat and let cool for 5 minutes.
Whisk in sugars. Add the granulated sugar and brown sugar to the chocolate mixture and whisk until combined. The mixture will look grainy — that’s fine.
Add eggs and vanilla. Add the eggs one at a time, whisking well after each addition. Stir in the vanilla extract. The batter should begin to look glossy and smooth.
Fold in cocoa and salt. Sift the cocoa powder and salt over the batter and fold in gently with a rubber spatula until just incorporated and no dry streaks remain. Fold in chocolate chips, if using.
Bake. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and spread into an even layer. Bake for 22–26 minutes, until the top is set and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with moist crumbs (not wet batter). Do not overbake — the fudgy center firms as it cools.
Cool completely. Let the brownies cool in the pan on a wire rack for at least 30 minutes before lifting out and cutting into 16 squares. For the cleanest cuts, refrigerate for 20 minutes before slicing with a sharp knife wiped clean between cuts.

Nutrition (per serving)

The Fudgiest Flourless Brownies — The Baking Is the Chain