While I love, love, LOVE eating brownies, I have a history of baking them terribly. I’ve tried dozens of times to bake a nice, chewy, fudgy brownie but they have always come out either too dry, too hard or…I’m embarrassed to admit, a few times they haven’t set at all, choosing to remain at the “fudge sauce” consistency.

So when I was asked to create a treat using Samuel Adams Boston Lager, of course, I immediately thought to bake “beer brownies” because…well, I guess I figured this would force me to bake brownies until I got it right. And I’m a glutton for punishment (obviously).

Discarding all the past (failed) brownie recipes I’ve  tried, I found  several on the internet that used some form of alcohol in them and started sifting through those until I settled on a couple that looked promising.

With my 6-pack of Samuel Adams in hand, I tackled the first recipe, adapting it for the Boston Lager. It came out much drier than I had hoped. To be fair, Paul and my parents  really enjoyed this “failed brownie”, which was more like a chocolate cake with strong hints of Boston Lager. This “chocolate beer cake” was so popular with my family that I’ve already been asked to bake it again so you’ll probably see a recipe in a future blog post. But back to my brownies…

I hit the kitchen again, this time a little more anxiously since I now had yet another failed brownie attempt under my belt. I read a little more about brownie baking techniques – apparently one thing I was doing wrong was that I never wait for my brownies to “set” properly after baking. Ack! Why do all my favourite sweets (first macarons, now brownies!) have a 24-hour waiting period? Anyhow, I adapted another recipe to work with the Boston Lager, made another mess in the kitchen and crossed my fingers.

By the way, when you simmer Samuel Adams Boston Lager on the stove – your kitchen ends up smelling AWESOME.

When I pulled the pan out of the oven, it was a little…um…liquidy. But I remembered what I had read about being patient, so I put the pan on a cooling rack and went off to wait. After the recipe-recommended 2 hours, I cut into the brownies. Disappointment ensued – the brownies were still too gooey. *sigh*

With no other options, I left the brownies in the pan (mainly because I’d had it with brownies at this point) and went off to work on other things (namely trying to beat Paul at Candy Crush).

The next morning, when I went to peek at the brownies again, I was in for a real treat. The brownies had set! They were now a nice, fudgy, chewy brownie – just the way I like. I was in brownie breakfast heaven.

To make sure it wasn’t a fluke, I made a third batch of brownies, using the now-tweaked recipe from the second batch. Again, I left the whole pan to cool overnight and voila – another batch of awesome brownies! After cutting them into squares, I placed some into an air-tight container into the fridge and those tasted even better the next day!

So, the lesson of the day (besides the fact that having beer with you when you’re baking makes cleaning up more fun) is that brownies MUST be left in their pan overnight to cool before being cut. They are definitely a “plan-ahead” kind of dessert. But so worth it!

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beer brownies

ingredients

• 3/4 cup Samuel Adams Boston Lager
• 15 oz semi-sweet baking chocolate, chopped
• 1 1/2 cup unsalted butter, cubed
• 1 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
• 4 eggs, room temperature
• 1 1/2 cup flour, sifted
• 3 oz semi-sweet chocolate chips

directions

1. Preheat oven to 250 degrees F.
2. Line a 9”x13” baking pan with foil, allowing a 2" overhang on both sides of the pan (to make lifting the brownies out easier)
3. In a small saucepan, bring the Samuel Adams Boston Lager to a boil, then reduce heat to simmer. Simmer the beer until you have about 1/4 cup remaining (should take about 10 minutes). Set aside to cool.
4. In a double boiler or a small bowl atop a small saucepan filled with 1 inch of water, melt chopped chocolate squares and butter over medium-high heat, stirring regularly, until melted.
5. Pour melted chocolate-butter mixture into a medium bowl and cool slightly. Add Boston Lager, sugar, vanilla and salt and mix well with a whisk or wooden spoon. Add eggs one at a time, slowly mixing each one in until just combined before adding the next egg.
6. Gently fold flour into the chocolate mixture until just combined. Then gently fold in the chocolate chips.
7. Pour batter into the prepared baking pan.
8. Bake for one hour at 250 degrees F. Leaving the brownies in the oven, raise the oven temperature up to 300 degrees F and cook for another 15 minutes.
9. Remove the pan from the oven and place on cooling rack to cool overnight.
10. Once cooled, list the brownies from the pan (using foil overhang) and cut into squares.

3.1

https://www.kitchenfrolic.ca/2014/04/recipe-beer-brownies/

Recipe found on www.kitchenfrolic.ca

source: adapted from Bon Appetit’s Chocolate-Stout Brownies

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