Cupcakes, Brown Butter Cupcake Brownies

Source: Food 52 3/24/14

Ingredients

• 1¼ c. (2½ sticks) unsalted butter
• 2¼ c. sugar
• 1½ c. unsweetened cocoa powder, natural or Dutch process
• 2 tsp vanilla
• ¾ tsp salt
• 1 tbsp water
• 4 eggs, chilled
• ⅔ c. all-purpose flour
• 1¾ c. walnuts, chopped
• 1 c. chocolate chips (bittersweet or semi-sweet)

Method

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Generously butter and flour your cupcake pan (using a non-stick cupcake pan is ideal.) Set aside.

2. Melt the butter in a medium-sized saucepan. Don’t walk away. Swirl it around until it starts to brown. It will smell nutty and you’ll see little brown bits at the bottom of the pan. Remove from the heat and immediately stir in sugar, cocoa, vanilla, water, and salt. Cool for 5 minutes.

3. Add the eggs one at a time, whisking well after each addition. It will get all shiny and beautiful. At this point, add the flour. Now mix the heck out of it for about a minute (Alice says about 60 strokes). Stir in walnuts.

4. Spoon batter into cupcake pan (fill almost up to the top edge because they barely rise). Press chocolate chips down into the center of each cupcakes (as much or as little as you like). Bake until the edges are set and middle is still a bit gooey. This takes around 15 minutes. It is a bit hard to tell when they are done because of the melted chocolate. If you need to, take the pan out and take a peek inside with a paring knife.

5. Cool for 10 minutes before removing from the pan (the chocolate chips make them a bit fragile, so be careful). Serve right away with vanilla ice cream. Store at room temperature in a Ziploc bag for up to 3 days. Or freeze for a few months. Just pop them in a warm oven for 15 minutes or so before serving to awaken the gooey center.

Notes

I went by the firmness of the edge of the cupcakes to determine when they were cooked and that worked.

Barb used less than 1 cup chocolate chips and I used almost a cup. Both were fab.