bring on the beer

I just finished batch number one of Irish Beer Brownies. They'll be starring in the St. Patrick's Day care package that's coming up shortly.

Something about the recipe intimidated me at first, I think it was the bitterness of beer against the chocolate heaven of brownie batter. Whatever it was, I felt compelled to give the recipe a test drive before shipping them overseas only to hear how bad they tasted later.

The only trouble I had was with the cook time. Twenty minutes turned my mix into hot soup. Something closer to sixty minutes fluffed these babies into a very spongy-delicious consistency. You can taste the bitterness, but in a mature-palette kind of way, like dark chocolate or coffee.

Irish Beer Brownies

4 eggs
3/4 C. superfine sugar
8 oz. bittersweet chocolate, chopped
4 oz. white chocolate, chopped
6 T. unsalted butter
3/4 C. all-purpose flour
3/4 C. cocoa
1 1/4 C. (Irish Beer) stout
Confectioners' sugar for dusting

Preheat the oven to 375° F. Butter an 8-inch-square pan. In an electric mixer, combine the eggs and sugar. Beat until light and fluffy. In a medium saucepan over medium heat, melt the bittersweet chocolate, white chocolate and butter, stirring until smooth. Remove from heat and beat into the egg mixture. Sift the flour and cocoa together and beat into the chocolate mixture. Whisk in the beer. Pour into the pan and bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until a skewer inserted in the center comes out almost clean. Remove from the oven and let cool on a wire rack.

To serve, dust the cake with confectioners' sugar and cut into squares. Serves 8 to 10.

(recipe from cookie-recipes.net)