Guinness Brownies!

Happy St. Patricks Day to me!

Who doesn’t love St. Paddy’s Day?! Now, I’m not Irish, but I can appreciate any holiday that is based around eating (corned beef and cabbage anyone?!), drinking (Guinness for all!), and fashion (does everyone have their green outfit/nail polish/eyeshadow ready??), not to mention general merriment and tomfoolery! So, even though I don’t have Irish blood running through my veins, maybe that just leaves more room for Guinness! And Guinness Brownies!

These brownies are: decadent, silky, chocolatey, smooth, and RICH. These here are special occasion brownies people. You can’t eat them every day, but that just makes them even more fantastic.

You know how, when you make baked goods, you try to fool yourself by cutting off “little pieces” of whatever it is, because that’s way better than just cutting a big piece and eating the whole thing, but then you end up cutting off enough “little pieces” to make, I dunno, 3 full sized pieces? Yeah, me neither. And it’s definitely not a problem with these brownies.

I got this recipe from Bon Appetite and couldn’t not try it out for St. Patrick’s Day! I did make one naughty little change to the original recipe which I’ll get to later As if it wasn’t already naughty enough…are you seeing the two sticks of butter in that pic?!

First things first, melt the chocolate and butter over a double boiler.

Stir frequently until it is smooth. In the meantime, boil your Guinness in a small pot. Continue to boil until the stout is reduced to about a half cup.

This was the part I slightly tweaked. Instead of 1 cup of Guinness as the BA recipe suggests, I boiled a full pint of Guinness until it was reduced to a half cup. It means a bit more cooking time, but it also means MUCH more concentrated Guinness flavor, exactly what I was after! Y.U.M.

While your Guinness is boiling, whisk the eggs, sugar, and vanilla together. Add the reduced Guinness to the melted chocolate mixture and combine slowly into the egg and sugar mix.

Whisk to combine and then add the dry ingredients. A bit of flour and salt. Let’s not be too concerned with the dry ingredients, chocolate and beer are what really matter here, OK?

Stir to combine and pour into a prepared brownie pan. Bake at 350 for 35-40 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool. In the meantime, make your frosting.

How to make the frosting you ask? Easy, just combine MORE chocolate, MORE butter, and MORE beer! It’s perfect. Melt it all over a double boiler and keep slightly warm until you are ready to pour it on the cooled brownies.