recipe: chocolate stout brownies

i needed a yum dessert to bring to a fairly beer-loving crowd, and found a ton of amazing beer-inspired, beer-infused recipes. i decided to go with brownies (classic) from Foodie Crush, and omg am glad i did -- these turned out super-gooey, rich, and were actually one of the better brownies i've ever had - homemade, professional, or otherwise. i have a fear of making brownies and ending up with cake-like brownies (or... just icing-less chocolate cake?), these were more like uncooked brownie batter. YUM!

the recipe originally called for 1/2 cup stout, which reduces to about 1/4 cup... i used about 3x that as it very quickly evaporated. i'm not sure if that gave it even more of a rich, stouty flavor or not, but more beer never hurts :)

ingredients list:

- 1.5 cups stout

- 10 oz 60% bittersweet chocolate chips (i used a combo of semisweet chocolate chips & Ghirardelli dark chocolate 

- 1 cup butter

- 1 cup sugar

- 1 tsp vanilla

- 1/2 tsp kosher salt

- 3 eggs

- 1 cup flour

to make: 

preheat oven to 250 degrees F. Prepare a 9x9" baking pan with parchment paper, allowing paper to fold over the edges. spray with cooking spray wherever pan is not covered. 

bring stout to a boil and reduce to a simmer, cooking for about 10 minutes, or reduced to 1/4 cup. set aside to cool.

in a double boiler or small bowl resting on top of a small saucepan filled with 1 inch of water (aka ghetto boiler), melt chocolate chips and butter over high heat, stirring occasionally, until melted. 

pour melted chocolate into a medium bowl and cool slightly. add sugar, vanilla, salt, and stout, and mix well. as long as mixture has cooled slightly (to avoid any cooked eggs!), add in eggs one at a time, mixing until juuust combined after each egg. 

fold flour into mixture, and pour into baking pan. bake for 1 hour until a toothpick comes out clean. allow to cool in pan for 2 hours or overnight to firm up for cutting (brownies will be VERY gooey -- allow time to cut & plate). dust with powdered sugar, if desired.