OMG Brownies.

Oh. My. Goodness. I made these brownies to take to a friend's house for a low-key New Year's Eve gathering that involved lots of Scrabble, tv and catching up on life. They are sooooo gooooood. Leave it to Nigella to come up with an amazing brownie recipe. Now, I love a good brownie mix in the box (Ghirardelli is really superior to any others), but I'm going to be hard pressed to go back to the box now that I have this little gem in my arsenal. They took work - mise en place, or setting out all your ingredients ahead of time, will serve you well here - but I cannot emphasize enough just how worth the effort these brownies are. I copied and pasted this recipe from foodnetwork.com, but I have annotated it with a few additional tips/tidbits of information.

Triple Chocolate Brownies - Nigella Lawson (from foodnetwork.com)
3 sticks plus 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
12 ounces best-quality bittersweet chocolate (I used Ghirardelli 60% cocoa chips)
6 eggs
1 3/4 cups superfine sugar (LBDelicious note: don't go buying superfine sugar. Put 1 3/4 cups of regular sugar in the blender, and turn it into "superfine" in a few seconds.)
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup white chocolate buttons, chips, or morsels
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate buttons, chips or morsels (I used Ghirardelli for both white and semi-sweet chocolate; brand loyal, I know, but I swear it makes a difference.)
Approximately 2 teaspoons confectioners' sugar, for garnish (totally missed that step and they were still tasty.)

Special equipment: Baking tin (approximately 11 1/4 inches by 9 inches by 2 inches), sides and base lined with baking parchment. (I used my regular old brownie pan, and actually did take the time to line the bottom and sides with parchment, then sprayed them with cooking spray.)

Directions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Prepare the baking tin.

Melt the butter and dark chocolate together in a large heavy based pan over a low heat.

In a bowl, beat the eggs together with the superfine sugar and vanilla extract. (LBDelicious note: I may have added a few tablespoons of leftover coffee at this point because I love coffee and chocolate together.)

Allow the chocolate mixture to cool a little, then add the egg and sugar mixture and beat well. (LBDelicious note: worried I'd end up with chocolatey scrambled eggs, I tempered the egg mixture first by whisking in, very slowly, about a cup of the warm chocolate/butter mixture to bring up the temperature of the egg/sugar mixture. Then I slowly whisked in the egg mixture into the chocolate mixture. Turned out great.) Fold in the flour and salt. (LBDelicious: used a big ol' whisk, added the flour all at once and nearly lost half of it. Add flour gradually!) Then stir in the white chocolate buttons or chips, and the semisweet chocolate buttons or chips. Beat to combine then scrape and pour the brownie mixture into the prepared tin. (LBDelicious note: no one will judge you if you purposely don't scrape all the mixture into the pan because you want to eat a good 1/3 cup of the brownie batter.)

Bake for about 25 (LBDelicious note: 30) minutes. You can see when the brownies are ready because the top dries to a slightly paler brown speckle, while the middle remains dark, dense and gooey.

Allow to cool, cut and enjoy.

And, for added fun, after they've cooled, pop one in the microwave for a few seconds, then top it with a scoop of ice cream (we happen to have Edy's Slow-Churned Low-Fat Caramel in the freezer).