Fudge Brownies

Gather round everyone! It's funny story time. The other day my mom came home from work and had a baking request for me. This is because one of her co-workers expressed that his dying request would be to have one of my brownies.

At first I was just like "What the?" because this completely came out of the blue and I couldn't even remember making brownies for her office. But then I remembered that I did make them about a year ago, and I couldn't stop laughing at the extent of love that this man has for baked chocolate. Oh, office workers and their baked goodies. There's just something about working in a small space for 40 hours a week that makes you unnaturally drawn to anything with sugar in it.

Well, if brownies is what they want, freakishly amazing fudge brownies is what they'll get! Seriously, this recipe yields the best brownie I have ever tasted, and I have tasted many, many brownies in my life.

Oh, and by the way, I just saw Julie & Julia. If you are a foodie, there is no doubt in my mind that you will thoroughly enjoy this movie. Make these brownies and sneak them into the movie with you! Now wouldn't that be the ultimate food movie.

Ingredients:
1 3/4 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
16 tbsp butter, cut into chunks
2 cups sugar
1/4 cup water
11 oz semisweet chocolate, broken up
2 oz unsweetened chocolate, broken up
1 tbsp vanilla extract
4 large eggs
2 cups pecans

Preheat oven to 325 F and line a 9"x13" baking pan with aluminum foil, allowing the foil to overhang the ends of the pan by a couple inches. Grease the foil with nonstick spray.

In a large saucepan, bring the butter, sugar, and water just to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring.

Remove from the heat. Stir the chocolates into the sugar mixture until completely melted. Let cool to warm so that the eggs won't curdle.

Stir the vanilla into the chocolate mixture.

Then add the eggs and mix thoroughly.

Stir the dry ingredients into the chocolate mixture just until the batter is evenly blended. Less mixing = more tender brownies.

Stir in the nuts.

Turn out the batter into the pan, spreading it evenly to the edges.

Bake for 20-30 minutes, or until the center is barely firm when tapped. Transfer the pan to a wire rack and let cool to warm, about 20 minutes. Or just dig right in like some people and brave the burning of your taste buds for that warm gooeyness that will be lost within the minutes of cooling. What crazy person would do that?!