Spaten Optimator--Brownie Interpellation

When Chef Dre says that you should bake a beer brownie, her call is hard to resist. In fact, it's not really about resistance. It's suddenly as if that's what you had intended to do in the first place. And if a half-finished Spaten Optimator (dark and very malty -- perfect for brownie baking!) sat in the fridge as that very moment, surely, it was meant to be, right? Fate?

Drop everything. Bake brownie.

As it turns out, One Woman changed the recipe by claire thomas of the Huffington Post in order to fulfill two fantasies at once: recreating the copycat Momofuku cornflake, chocolate chip and marshmallow cookie, and beer brownie.

The result: Soft, super moist, and fudgy, with crazy molten marshmallow bits. Dreams come true. And then there's the chewy, salty weirdness that seems so wrong but feels so good (Warning: the caramelized cornflakes play a very different role here than they do in the Momofuku cookie). Or was it, seems so good, but feels so wrong, which makes it even more desirable? There's definitely something of the uncanny at work here.

What about the beer, you ask? Well, as This One Guy would say, that was just a canard.


One Woman's Oh-my-god I think I've finally lost it brownies
(adapted from the Kitchy Kitchen and Momofuku for 2)

Ingredients:
3.5 oz dark chocolate (chopped)
8 tablespoons of butter 
4 eggs, at room temp 
2/3 cup white sugar 
2/3 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 cup flour 
Big pinch kosher salt
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup malty beer at room temperature (dark porters are good too, but Spaten Optimator is both dark and malty. And aromatic)
2/3 cup caramelized cornflakes (click on link for how to make these)
2/3 cup dark chocolate disks
1 handful small marshmallows. And then another small one. 

Preheat oven to 350ºF and butter and flour a 9 x 13 inch pan. 

Melt the butter and chopped chocolate in a double boiler, then stir in the beer. Set aside and let cool.

While that's going on, sift together the cocoa powder, flour and salt in one bowl. In another bowl, beat the hell out of eggs and sugar until it's slick and shiny with an electric blender. Alternate adding the flour/cocoa mixture and the chocolate beer sauce, continuing to beat the mixture on the low setting of the blender. Stir in vanilla.

Fold in the chocolate disks, caramelized cornflakes, and marshmallows and pour into the baking dish. 

For good karma, toss another handful of marshmallows on top as you recite a prayer. 

Bake for 30 minutes; ready when you are. 

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Musical Pairings: "Whip it" by Devo 2.0 -- Disney magically transforms S&M overtones to a song about baking (click on the link to listen).

Momotaro (Modern Jazz Version) (Thanks to Wasabi T-Fab and Dr. K.U. for this one) -- The video is an old Japanese fairy tale about Momotaro aka "Peach-Boy" narrated through your favorite modern jazz hits. The clip is from a 1980s Japanese TV show featuring the comedian Tamori. Genius.