This recipe comes from my coworkers at Expeditors International, back before they were on the S&P500. The recipe was so important to corporate culture, it was saved on the department file server. I have included the original email from Denise, because it still makes me smile to recall how generous everyone there was with their regular gifts of home-baked goods.
When I worked there, I lived in fear of a very senior developer named Joe, who could be sarcastic or even mean if you asked him a dumb question. I changed my opinion of him one day when he brought a batch of these brownies to work. He had a soft spot!
Even if you don’t have a reputation as a curmudgeon, try making a batch of these and taking them to your coworkers. It’s sure to help your career.
Denise wrote: “Bret Sutton is the first author of these brownies for EI intake. I just have been the baker of them for a few years now. Please take the recipe and bake away. Try to remember that we all have a sugar tooth and would enjoy a few batches here at work every so often. Have you tried Bret’s cookies over by Nye & Betsy today? He makes really good cookies….” (The Foodie Gazette has the recipe for these, which we called Bret’s COCCC cookies)
Brownie recipe from scratch goes something like this:
Melt 1-1/2 cups real butter in a semi large bowl. Stir in 2-1/4 or so cups of sugar, 1 tblspn or so of real vanilla, and six eggs. Mix well.
In another larger bowl put in 1 cup cocoa, 1-1/2 cup flour, about a tsp of salt, about a tsp of baking powder and mix these dry ingredients all up. Then pour in the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients bowl and stir all up.
Once mixed then stir in one 12 oz bag or two cups of chocolate chips and mix. If you like mint, toss in about a dozen mint chips for a mild flavor or mix the two cups up with half mint and half chocolate chips for a stronger flavor.
Grease a 9×13 pan and pour the mixed up brownie mix in it.
Bake at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes or so.
Use a toothpick or something to check if is baked all the way. Use your own judgment on how cooked you care to have it. If very runny cook it longer, if the toothpick comes out with little to no batter on it then I would say it is done. If the top is starting to black in spots and the edges look very black and pulled away from the pan, then i would say you burnt them.
These are excellent right out of the oven, put Ben & Jerry’s fudge brownie ice-cream on top and then pour Hot Fudge or Chocolate syrup on them.
Enjoy….
These brownies merited a mention in a limerick on my blog. I don’t have a career to worry about any more, but it’s still important to keep my friends sweet.