Kahlua Fudge Brownies

By Addie

Today’s recipe is from Steven, who got it from a trusted source (his godmother) but couldn’t make it work. The brownies tasted good, but were goopy and seemed underdone even though they appeared fully baked. My mission was to troubleshoot. Not wanting to waste precious chocolate and Kahlua on goopy brownies, the first thing I did was search the Internet to see if the recipe existed elsewhere. Naturally, it did. I found it on Cooks.com and Recipesource and the versions were almost identical, except for pan size and flour discrepancies. Those sources called for 1 1/4 cups, while this recipe called for 1 ½ sifted cups. The varying amounts of flour and the fact that one of the recipes called for sifted were signals Steven’s problems probably came from not using enough flour. If we all baked with scales, this wouldn’t be an issue, but 1 ½ cups sifted flour can be anywhere 6 oz to 7 or even 8 depending on how heavy a hand is used to scoop and how well the flour is sifted and (possibly) humidity.

So long story short, I made the brownies using a guestimated 6.5 oz of flour and they were great. They’re dense, thick, and on the sweet side, but the generous amount of toasted walnuts helps temper the sweetness so if you use this recipe, don’t leave them out.

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups sifted flour (determined that 6.5 oz weight worked)
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 11 tablespoons butter (I used unsalted)
• 3 oz unsweetened chocolate
• 3 eggs (large)
• 2 cups granulated sugar
• 5 Tablespoons Kahlua, plus a little extra for top
• 3/4 cup TOASTED chopped walnuts

Details

Adapted from keyingredient.com

Preparation

Step 1

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Line a 9″ square metal pan with foil, grease well or line with non-stick foil (recommended).

Mix the flour with baking powder and salt. Melt butter with chocolate (did this in the microwave). Beat eggs with sugar until light. Add chocolate mixture and kahlua. Stir in flour mixture and nuts. Blend well.

Pour into prepared pan and bake 30 minutes (35 minutes) or until the top springs back in the center and edges begin to pull away from the pan.

Remove from oven and cool thoroughly in pan. Brush top with 1 Tablespoon Kahlua.

When cool, lift from pan and cut into 16 thick brownies.
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COMMENTS:

The scale is my favorite thing when baking. I always measure flour 120 grams per cup (Not sure what that is in ounces, I thought it was 7.) But there sure is a difference when I just try to measure cups–that way is always a lot more heavy handed than we think. I always measure at least flour and both kinds of sugar. REPLY: That’s my understanding of “sifted flour” as well. Myself, I use 130g as a standard cup, but it has always been my opinion that we need someone other than the flour companies to come up with standard measurements (they don’t seem to understand the problem).

The texture was perfect — dense and thick but not cakey. They were sweet the first day, but the sweetness mellowed by Day 2.

These look delicious! How can Kaluha and chocolate be anything but? I’m with Sue on the liquid chocolate. I don’t think it can be substituted for regular unsweetened chocolate without altering the texture. It’s like using oil vs butter. Your finished product will be different if you don’t change anything else in the recipe. That’s my unsolicited 2 cents!

About the sifted flour- does that mean to sift some flour first and then measure out 1.5 cups of that? Or to measure 1.5 cups of flour and THEN sift and use that? These sound way too good to waste on goop! And I don’t have a scale, though this could be the recipe that could push me to get one. Thanks for any sifting advice you have! REPLY: I’ve always read “sifted flour” to mean flour that’s been measured after sifting. If a recipe says “1 cup flour, sifted”, then I take that to mean it’s a standard cup of flour that you sift after measuring. Since you don’t have a scale, just fluff up the flour really well then spoon and sweep.