Heart-Felt Brownies, February, 2018.

Baking is a heart-felt activity.  Do it with love or not at all!

Make your brownies fit the mood.  Silicone heart-shaped pans are available online NYCake.com and in specialty baking stores. 

Here’s my brownie recipe which will fill 6-12 medium heart shaped molds.  I usually dab on a bit of sparkling wine icing and sugar sprinkles after they have cooled, but icing not required.

Both my cookbooks have icing recipes.  Here’s one of my favorites. Champagne Icing

• Ingredients for Brownies
• 12 tablespoons (1 ½ sticks) unsalted butter 
• 4 ounces bittersweet chocolate (at least 60% cacao) broken into small even-sized pieces
• 1 ¼ cups granulated sugar
• 3 large eggs
• ½ cup and 2 tablespoons unbleached all-purpose flour
• Pinch of salt

• Directions for Brownies
• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
• Thoroughly grease the heart-shaped-mold pan(s).  I use vegetable oil and get the sides also.
• In a small, heavy-bottom pan, warm the butter and chocolate over low heat until almost melted.
• Remove the pan from the heat and set aside to cool and finish melting (around 10 minutes).
• In a large bowl, beat the sugar, eggs and vanilla until smooth and fluffy.  Add the cooled butter and chocolate and mix until well blended. 
• Measure the flour and salt and sift directly into the chocolate mixture.  Mix gently until no trace of the dry ingredients remains.
• With a small ladle or large spoon, scoop the batter evenly into the heart molds. 
• Baking Tip…do not fill the batter all the way to the top.  ½ filled is perfect.
• Bake for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean or with only crumbs. 
• Cool in the pan for at least 1 hour.  Remove the brownies gently from the molds.
• Cool on a platter another hour before icing.
• If you only have 1 pan, let the first batch cool completely (at least 1 hour) before you flip out the hearts and start over with the rest of the batter.  Re-grease! 
• Champagne Icing is perfect. I usually add a few red sprinkles for presentation.