Can a brownie be too rich?

The answer to that is no. Duh. When I was looking for something chocolaty to make with my brand spanking new professional Kitchen Aid mixer, I found a recipe by Ina Garten labeled 'Brownie' Pudding'. Sounds interesting enough. Sounds like undercooked brownies, which, if it's anything like uncooked cookie dough, I'm completely on-board with. The reviews were mostly good, although a few people mentioned it was too rich. Huh? How is that possible? Well, I was determined to find out.

The ingredients couldn't be more simple:

• 1/2 pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter (ah, I see....RICH)
  
• 4 extra-large eggs, at room temperature
• 2 cups sugar
• 3/4 cup good cocoa powder
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• Seeds scraped from 1 vanilla bean
• 1 tablespoon framboise liqueur, optional

My modifications? No liqueur (didn't have any on hand) and I used 1 tsp of high quality vanilla extract instead of the vanilla bean. You could use up to 2 tsp as a substitute, if you'd like.

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Lightly butter or spray a 2-quart (9 by 12 by 2-inch) oval baking dish. So, full disclosure on this, I used a 9 by 13 rectangular baking dish. I think this may have had some effect on the end result, but I'll get to that later.

Melt the 1/2 pound of butter and set aside to cool.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the eggs and sugar on medium-high speed for 5 to 10 minutes, until very thick and light yellow. Can I tell you how cool it is watching this happen for 5 minutes when it's your first time using your very own mixer? Like magic.

Meanwhile, sift the cocoa powder and flour together and set aside. Or just dump them both in a bowl....either or.

When the egg and sugar mixture is ready, reduce the speed to low and add the vanilla seeds (or vanilla extract), framboise, if using, and the cocoa powder and flour mixture. Mix only until combined. With mixer still on low, slowly pour in the cooled butter and mix again just until combined.

Pour the brownie mixture into the prepared dish and place it in a larger baking pan.

Add enough of the hottest tap water to the pan to come halfway up the side of the dish and bake for exactly 1 hour. You can see that I didn't have a bigger pan to put this in, so I improvised. Necessity is the mother of invention, right? I couldn't get the water halfway up, but there are worse travesties in the world.

A cake tester inserted 2 inches from the side will come out 3/4 clean. The center will appear very under-baked; this dessert is between a brownie and a pudding.

The result of my improvising with the pan size and the lack of proper submersion? These were pretty much solid all the way through. Soft, but cooked. The top layer was this super yummy, really thin, crisp layer while everything underneath was rich and moist. Was this sweet? Yes. Was it rich? Yes. Did that stop me from eating quite a bit of it with a few scoops of vanilla ice cream? No way.

These were definitely delicious. Not really easy to cut into traditional brownies, but perfect for putting in a bowl with some ice cream.

Piacere (enjoy)!