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It’s Friday and you need some brownies this weekend.  I can tell.  Sure, you could pick some up at the coffee shop or the bakery section in the grocery store on the way home.  But I’m pretty sure what you really need are these brownies, hands down the best homemade brownies I’ve had.

So far in the standby recipes series I’ve gone easy on you and I’ve focused on dinner.  But everyone needs a little sweetness in life and what’s a snow day without a warm concoction to delight and indulge in?  I hope you don’t wait until it’s snowing again to try these because they are worth heating up the oven in summer.

Smitten Kitchen is a beautiful and tasty site for finding new gems and fresh takes on old favorites.  You don’t have to be an accomplished cook to follow along and you can spend a surprising amount of time hitting the “Surprise Me!” random recipe generator link. 

Here is the link to her “My Favorite Brownies” recipe, which is now my favorite brownie recipe, too.  A few tips from me:

• I make them exactly as she describes, though I had to go out to find “flaky sea salt” (Maldon salt – you should rub it together between your palms after measuring, to break it up a bit before adding it to the other ingredients).  It’s a fancy ingredient and you can certainly use kosher sea salt (I did this the first time or two I made them), but the Maldon salt is a nice touch – and then you have it around for sprinkling on other dishes.
• Before using this recipe, I had never tried her method of spraying and parchment in the bottom of the pan.  Try it!  It is wonderfully efficient.
• Please don’t fret if you have never tried melting chocolate and butter together in this double boiler method she describes.  It is easier than you might think.  You put about 1-2 inches of water in the bottom of a saucepan and put a bowl on top of that pan (a glass Pyrex bowl is perfect for this).  It just needs to rest on the pan without touching the water below.  You put the butter and chocolate in the bowl as she directs and stir while the water below simmers (once you’ve got it boiling, turn it down to a simmer or very low boil so it doesn’t get too hot and burn the chocolate).  It is really that simple and now you can impress people by throwing around terms like “double boiler.”
• One more note on ingredients:  Other than the splurge for the fancy salt, the ingredients are common kitchen staples and there are only 6 of them.  This is so easy to whip up!  I use regular Baker’s unsweetened chocolate and I have even made these with gluten-free flour on occasion and they were still amazing.

Happy Friday snow day in summer!