I used to make the best chocolate fudge brownies based on a recipe from Nestle’s Very Best Baking site, but they removed the recipe from the site in 2013. I wallowed in sorrow for years unable to find the recipe on another site. Yesterday I remembered that I had bookmarked the site on del.icio.us, and I was able to recall the URL in the Way Back Machine. Within 60 minutes, I was intoxicated in a chocolate paradise.

Instead of Nestle Choco Bake, I use baking chocolate. (My personal preference is Hershey’s Baking Chocolate.) This recipe produces brownies that are similar to a box mix but provides the mouthfeel and richness of a confection scratch-made with baking chocolate.

The original recipe enumerates three variations, but I recommend avoiding them. Instead, I flavor the brownies with the nut and liquor combinations at the end of this post. I sprinkle the batter with semi-sweet chocolate chips before baking. While the brownies are cooling, I powder them with confections sugar, which creates a delectable treat.

Ingredients

• 1 1/3 c. all-purpose flour
• 1/4 tsp. baking soda
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1 2/3 c. granulated sugar
• 1/2 c. (1 stick) margarine
• 2 tbl. water (or liquor)
• 4 oz. unsweetened baking chocolate
• 2 large eggs
• 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 c. chopped nuts (see combinations below)
• 1/3 c. chocolate chips

Instructions

1. Preheat your oven to 350° F
2. Grease 11x8-in. or 9x9-in. baking pan
3. Melt together sugar, butter and water on medium heat until just boiling
4. Melt in chocolate and remove from heat while being careful not to burn the chocolate
5. Allow chocolate mixture to cool enough that it will not cook (scramble) the eggs
6. Stir in eggs, one at a time, until incorporated
7. Stir in vanilla extract
8. Combine flour, baking soda and salt
9. Add flour mixture; stir well
10. Stir in nuts if desired
11. Pour batter into prepared baking pan
12. Sprinkle batter with chocolate chips
13. Bake for approximately 25 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out slightly sticky
14. Remove from oven and sprinkle with confectioners sugar

Drunken combinations

1. Replace water with bourbon and use pecans as the nuts
2. Replace water with coffee liquor and use hazelnuts as the nuts
3. Replace water with rye whiskey or brandy and use walnuts as the nuts

Hello from Hexo! I’m starting out with a new blog engine and without any of the old content.

After losing all of my data do to a VPS crash, I decided not to restore from my backups. My backup method was outdated, and it would have been more effort than it is worth. The traffic data indicates that nobody is going to miss the old content.

Instead of a dynamic site backed by a database, I decided to use a static site generator whose configuration and data can be version controlled using git. Welcome to Hexo!

In future posts, I will describe my process for version control, automated generation, and automated deployment of this blog.