In addition to celebrating St. Patrick's Day, let's also celebrate my triumphant return, with a little piece of love, originally called the Bourbon-Brownie Petit Four by Better Home and Garden magazine's test kitchen. They say you can cut out about 64 brownies from this recipe (being that they're petit fours), but I doubled the recipe and struggled to get that since you don't want them to crumble away to nothing. Let's say one recipe easily makes 2 dozen, and then you can be pleasantly surprised at anything above and beyond that!
Ingredients (brownie):1/2 C butter
3 oz unsweetened chocolate, coarsely chopped
1/4 C bourbon
3 T instant coffee granules (I always use a bold roast)
1 C sugar
1 tsp vanilla
3/4 C all purpose flour
1/4 tsp baking soda
Ingredients (glaze and frosting):
1 C whipping cream
6 oz milk chocolate chips
6 oz semi-sweet chocolate chips
Directions:
1. In a medium saucepan, melt and stir the butter and unsweetened chocolate until smooth. Remove and cool.
2. Preheat your oven to 350. Line an 8"x8" pan with foil that hangs over the edge for easy brownie removal. Grease the foil and then set it aside. In a small cup/bowl, combine the bourbon and coffee granules and set aside as well.3. Stir sugar into your chocolate mixture. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until just combined. Then, stir in your vanilla and the coffee bourbon mixture.
4. In a separate bowl, stir together flour and baking soda. Add to the chocolate mixture, stirring until just combined. Spread batter evenly into your prepped pan.
5. Bake for 30 minutes, then cool on a wire rack. Lift brownies out of the pan. You can cut off the edges at this point, or leave them if you'd prefer. I cut mine off (as recommended), but the edges weren't so crusty that I think they would've ruined my squares.
6. Cut brownies into 1" or 1 1/2" squares. Coat with Semisweet chocolate glaze (see following recipe).
7. Top each glazed brownie with piped Milk Chocolate Frosting rosette (see following recipe).
Glaze and Frosting Directions:
1. In a medium saucepan, bring whipping cream just to boiling over medium high heat. Remove.
2. For Milk Chocolate Frosting, transfer 1/2 C of the cream to a small bowl and add milk chocolate chips - DO NOT STIR. Let stand for five minutes, and then stir until smooth. Cover loosely, then chill for about 2 hours, beat with an electric mixer until fluffy, then bag and pipe.
3. For Semisweet Chocolate Glaze, take warm cream and stir semisweet chips in until smooth (helps if you're doing this in the hot saucepan, then glaze over cut brownies.
For whatever reason, I was super annoyed with the frosting and chose not to use it. The brownies were still amazing and no one would've ever guessed you needed frosting to enjoy these. So rich and decadent, and while you could detect the hint of bourbon, it wasn't overwhelming. More people noticed the hint of coffee than the liquor in the brownie.
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