Brownies, Brownies, Brownies

I'm insane. If you know me, you already knew that but dissertating makes it so much worse.

Yesterday I saw this recipe posted over on cookie madness. Oooooo.... Aztec brownie..... Figuring they would go great with the coffee porter Luke made and we're cracking this weekend, I whipped up a batch.

Despite the "cakey" warning ( I'm a fudgy brownie girl), I followed the recipe exactly and used Hershey's Special Dark cocoa powder . After letting them cool I took a bite. Now, I should have thought about the cakiness and that the recipe only called for 2 Tbl of cocoa powder.... B/c the spices were nice but the cocoa was bland. Like a cheap supermarket oils based chocolate cake. Totally not worth the calories.

Not to be set back, I decided to whip up another batch using the fail-safe Hershey's best brownies recipe, but this time using my beloved special dark . Normally, these are a rich,buttery, fudgy brownie with a flaky crust.  This is what I got:

Again, I got  milder chocolate flavor in these cookies. I'd describe the texture on the cakier side of brownies. Sort of a dense cake, but not really fugdy.  Good, but not what I was looking for.

Not to be set back, I decided to whip up a third batch of brownies, because, damn it, if I'm going to eat butter, chocolate and sugar, I want it to taste like butter, chocolate and sugar.

After some procrastinating-from-writing-my-dissertation-googling... I (re)discovered that Hershey's Special Dark Cocoa is Dutch processed. You see, natural cocoa is slightly acidic. It's what gives it the slightly bitter, rich chocolate flavor. Dutch processed cocoa is processed with an alkali in order to rend it neutral. As a result, they both cook differently. Joy of Baking has a really good description here. I've used dutch processed cocoa in cakes and cookies with no problem, but in brownies it significantly changed the texture and flavor. Seeing as I was already 2 batches of brownies deep, what was the harm in making a third? This time, same Best Brownies recipe but with natural (non-alkalinized) Hershey's cocoa powder.

Voila:

That's what I'm talking about. Just so you know, these two batched were baked in the same, pan, same oven, same amount of time. The only difference was the cocoa powder. I have no idea why the right side did that weird thing, but you can see the thick, fudgy layer of brownie with the crispy, glossy top.  This batch wasn't going to win any beauty contests (my other batches of this recipe have been prettier), but they tasted the chocolaty-ist of the group. Plus, they were eventually frosted and frosting covers a lot of ills. It's like the photoshop of the baking world. These were about 1/2 the height of the dutch processed batch. 

For a side-by-side comparison:

Finally, the taste test.

We both felt the Spice Islands Brownies tasted like a spice cake that had a bit of chocolate added to it. Good, but not really chocolaty, and these are really like a chocolate cake, not a brownie. The Hershey's best with dutch processed cocoa were very good. More like a dense cake or a light brownie. The chocolate flavor was more intense than the Spice Islands (2 Tbl in SI, 1/3 c. cocoa in the Hershey's recipe). They aren't what I look for in a brownie on the whole, but if I need a cakey version I'll make this recipe. The Best Brownies with natural cocoa powder were the best. Sort of like a flourless chocolate cake.

The spice combo - cayenne, nutmeg, cinnamon, and almond - was well-blended and tasty in each brownie. Not something I'd make regularly, but definitely something I'd bring to a party or make when I wanted something different. I'd also consider adding a bit of orange zest (sort of like Green and Black's Maya Gold Chocolate).

What I found most interesting was the big difference between cocoa powders in the 2 versions of the Hershey's recipe. In retrospect, the natural cocoa powder brownies could have used an extra 4 min or so (bringing the cooking time to 28-30 min, maybe even 35 depending on the oven) rather than 24. But the texture and taste difference between the two was significant. In the future, I'm going to stick to natural cocoa powder in brownie recipes - but if you like 'em cakey, use Dutch processed.