Tribute to Katharine Hepburn Brownies

This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe was selected by Lisa of Surviving Oz . She chose the Tribute to Katharine Hepburn Brownies. Check out Lisa’s blog for the complete recipe. Lisa isn’t a regular Tuesday with Dorie blogger, but she recently won the Tuesdays with Dorie logo contest, so she got to select this week’s recipe. Lisa, she admits, is not a baker, but if you read her blog entry, she did very well making this week’s recipe!

These brownies are based on ones created by Katharine Hepburn. When Ms. Hepburn passed away, several incarnations of this brownie surfaced. This is Dorie’s inspiration. The brownies are very thin and fudgy, with very little flour. These have added pecans and chopped bittersweet chocolate. They also have cinnamon and instant espresso powder as flavor boosters. I used dark chocolate cocoa powder, so my brownies are especially dark. I liked that these were basically a one saucepan brownie. Not too many dishes to wash!

These were very quick to put together. Chopping the nuts and the chocolate took the longest. The recipe called for lining the bottom of the pan with parchment, but I decided to have the parchment hang over the sides so that I could remove the brownies from the pan easily. I am so glad that I did this, as it made cutting the brownies as easy as possible.

I had read some of the comments that the other Tuesdays with Dorie bakers had made, and some of the others had said that there were too gooey when baked for the time specified in the recipe. The nature of these brownies makes it hard to test them in a traditional way, so you just kind of have to go with your gut. I decided to bake my brownies about 10 additional minutes. Others had commented that due to their fudgy nature, they were easier to cut when thoroughly chilled. I refrigerated the brownies quite a few hours before cutting them.

I’m not usually a fan of dark chocolate, but I really liked these brownies. Since I cut them when they were very cold, they cut perfectly. I liked the texture and the big chunks of chocolate and nuts. I think I added too much chocolate, but that’s not a bad thing. I had cut back on the quantity of instant espresso powder, since I didn’t want that to be too strong. You could still taste a hint of the coffee, but it wasn’t too strong. I have to say that these brownies ended up being one of my favorite recipes selected for Tuesdays with Dorie. Thanks for choosing such a great recipe Lisa!

Recipe from Baking from My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan, page 96.