Homemade "box" brownies

It's been a while since the Nookery has had a new recipe (I'm looking at all of you, other authors!). At work someone left a copy of Cook's Illustrated magazine on the free table and since I love those guys, I nabbed it. Inside was an article regarding box mix brownies. No one can deny that box brownies are delicious. They're just a whole other beast and sometimes you just want one of those. So this recipe tried to combine the best of both worlds, a homemade "box" brownie that has the texture of box brownies but the added flavor of homemade ones. A long story short, the magic formula was the ratio of unsaturated to saturated fats. Box mix brownies have a very different ratio than most homemade recipes so this recipe tried to sort that out.

(Note: this picture is not mine, I stole it off google.)

Cook's Illustrated Chewy Brownies

1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons boiling water
2 ounces unsweetened chocolate
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 eggs
2 egg yolks
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups sugar
1 3/4 cups flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
6 ounces bittersweet chocolate

Directions:
1. Adjust oven rack to lowest position and heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease 9x13 baking pan.

2. Whisk cocoa and boiling water together in large bowl until smooth. Add unsweetened chocolate and whisk until chocolate is melted. Whisk in melted butter and oil. (Mixture may look curdled.) Add eggs, yolks, and vanilla and continue to whisk until smooth and homogeneous. Whisk in sugar until fully incorporated. Add flour and salt and mix with rubber spatula until combined. Fold in bittersweet chocolate pieces.

3. Scrape batter into prepared pan and bake until toothpick inserted halfway between edge and center comes out with just a few moist crumbs attached, 30 to 35 minutes. Transfer pan to wire rack and cool 1½ hours.

Note: If using a glass baking dish, cool the brownies for 10 minutes then remove from pan (glass has good heat retention and can lead to overbaking).


Notes and tips:
1. I didn't use bittersweet chocolate, I didn't want to buy an extra kind of chocolate (I already had to buy the unsweetened bar). Instead I just used regular semisweet chocolate chips. 6 ounces should be about 1 cup.
2. The brownies were pretty dang good. They had a nice crackly top, similar to that of box mix (probably with a bit more crackle). The texture was nice, not quite like the box mix as I underbake a bit because I like them a bit gooey, but very similar.
3. I did find the brownies to be oily. It wasn't too bad, still delicious and good texture but just a bit too much oil. I think the next time I make these I'll cut down the oil, but I'll have tweak it carefully to keep that unsaturated/saturated fat ratio the same. I might try to replace some of the oil with applesauce and see how that turns out.