How to make perfect brownies

Something very weird happened to Kevin Costner back in 1989. As he stood in his cute, all-American white tee in an Iowan cornfield, the very crop seem to have a message for him: "If you build it … they* will come" it whispered, somewhat unhelpfully. Putting aside the issue of whether Field of Dreams was single-handedly responsible for the Millennium Dome for a moment, I'd like to suggest the same is true of the chocolate brownie. Put brownies on the menu, and people will come, and they will order dessert. They simply cannot help themselves; confronted by the prospect of this all-American delight, the human soul crumbles into fudgey defeat, and a million eyes widen into heart-shaped pools of chocolate goo.

*Actually, it's "he will come". But everyone gets it wrong, and it suits me better.

Cakey v fudgey

When it comes to brownies, I bow to "his Holiness Lord Nigel", as one blogger terms the Observer's celebrated cookery writer, and the Very Good Chocolate Brownies from his Kitchen Diaries which, in my experience, more than live up to their boastful billing. The beauty of the recipe lies in the fact that the results are both deliciously rich and surprisingly light, which allows the ingestion of more than is strictly wise before the inevitable nausea sets in.

The world splits into two camps on the brownie issues: crumbly and cakey, and dense and fudgey. There is little love lost between them – Slater's recipe is unashamedly cakey in method, requiring one to beat 250g unsalted butter and 300g golden caster sugar until fluffy, while melting 200g chocolate above a pan of simmering water. Three lightly beaten, large eggs, and one extra yolk are gradually added to the mixture, before folding in 60g flour, 60g cocoa powder, ½ tsp baking powder, 50g chocolate chocolate and a pinch of salt, gently, "without knocking any of the air out".

Sceptics will no doubt be muttering that this sounds far more like a sponge than a brownie – but they should hold their tongues until the mixture has spent 30 minutes in an 180C oven, after which they'll no doubt be inclined to put them to better use. Divinely dark, seductively sandy, these are brownies for grown-ups, especially if you defy Nigel and add some walnuts – far from getting "in the way", they're a pleasingly crunchy counterpoint to all that chocolate.

The more butter the better?

If there's one thing the twin deities of Nigel and Nigella disagree about, it's brownies. Slater reckons his is the "crumbliest, gooiest brownie recipe ever" but, of course, it's not – Nigella's is. With six eggs and 375g butter, what lies beneath the surprisingly crisp crust is something more akin to a baked fudge than anything which could be politely eaten with one's hands, which is probably the whole point – I expect she eats it messily, and in a crumpled silk dressing gown.

Aside from the richness of the ingredients, the lack of a raising agent is telling: no baking powder is allowed to lighten the load here – this is pure, unadulterated, chocolatey goo. It's got many fans, but, although I court the contempt of brownie lovers everywhere with this admission, for me it's too much.

Unlike Nigel's recipe, which seeks to trap air in the mixture before baking, Nigella's method melts the chocolate and butter together, and then quickly stirs in the eggs and dry ingredients to give a smooth, glossy batter. This technique obviously helps keep things nice and dense – if you like that kind of thing.

All rise?

Despite my loyalty to Nigel, during the course of my research I read in the New York Times that, according to an expert on American "heirloom baking", "Leavening is about as useful in brownies as it is in mashed potatoes". Abashed, I decide to give another, less rich recipe a try.

The brownies in Leiths Baking Bible contain 140g butter, 2 large eggs, and 1 large egg yolk, as well as 200g chocolate, 225g caster sugar, 85g flour, 2 tsp vanilla essence and a pinch of salt. They're much more to my taste: dense, yes, but also ever so slightly chewy, yet they're not quite as darkly chocolatey as Nigel's, which makes me ponder the role of cocoa powder in the recipe. I suspect it gives the mixture an intense flavour, without weighing it down with extra fat.

Old-style brownies

If this is the case, then my next recipe, from the Ballymaloe Cookery School, could do with a hefty dose of cocoa. It contains a mere 50g chocolate to 100g butter and 200g caster sugar, as well as 2 eggs, 75g flour, ½ tsp of both baking powder and vanilla extract, and 110g chopped walnuts. Although the results are delicious, they have a definite toffee-ish flavour, rather than being assertively chocolatey, which I put down to the high sugar content. The first recipes for brownies, which appeared in the early years of the last century, called for even less chocolate – then a luxurious, and rather exotic ingredient in comparison with the all-American abundance of dairy – so perhaps these have some call to authenticity, if not modern tastes. I notice all that sugar has given these brownies a delectably brittle crust – if only they weren't quite so sweet.

Technique

Devotees of the soft and fudgey school of brownie often advocate ripping them untimely from the oven in order to devour the "warm goo" in the centre that is apparently "one of life's greatest pleasures". Personally, if I want a chocolate fondant, I'll order one, but if that's how you roll, then you might be interesting in a tip I learnt from the American First Lady of Chocolate, Alice Medrich. Just before you take your brownies out of the oven, pour an inch of cold water into a roasting tin, and tip in as many ice cubes as you can find in the freezer (if you're as disorganised as me, you'll be reassured to know that wine coolers also work well here) – then, as soon as they're done to your satisfaction, plunge the tin into its chilly bath. This stops the mixture cooking almost immediately, and gives you a nice moist centre, without the claggy denseness of underdone flour.

Although Nigel's beloved "peat bog" texture is undoubtedly what sets brownies apart from a mere common or garden chocolate cake, it's infinitely better when complimented by a crunchy, thin topping. I'm wary of increasing the sugar content, so I do a little digging online, and discover that beating the batter vigorously after adding the egg will help create a meringue-like outer layer which rises as the mixture bakes. Perfect.

My perfect brownies demand a mixture of cocoa powder and chocolate, for ultimate richness of flavour without heaviness, and intensive beating, to give them an irresistibly crisp crust. A brief cold water bath finishes these moist, intensely chocolatey little cakes off perfectly.

Perfect chocolate brownies

250g 70% cocoa chocolate
250g unsalted butter
300g golden caster sugar
3 large eggs, plus 1 extra egg yolk, lightly beaten
60g plain flour
½ tsp baking powder
Pinch of salt
60g good quality cocoa powder
100g walnuts (optional)

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180C, and line a 23cm x 23cm baking tin with baking parchment.

2. Set a bowl over, but not touching, a pan of simmering water, and add 200g of the chocolate, broken into pieces. Allow to melt, stirring occasionally, and then remove from the heat immediately.

3. Meanwhile, beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, and break the rest of the chocolate into chips.

4. With the mixer still running, gradually add the eggs, beating well between each addition to ensure it's thoroughly incorporated before pouring in any more. Leave mixing on a high speed for five minutes until the batter has a silky sheen, and has increased in volume.

5. Remove the bowl from the mixer, and gently fold in the melted chocolate and chocolate chips with a metal spoon, followed by the sifted flour, baking powder, salt, cocoa powder and walnuts.

6. Spoon the mixture into the tin, and bake for 30 minutes. Test with a skewer; it should come out sticky, but not coated with raw mixture. If it does, put it back into the oven for another 3 minutes, then test again. Prepare a roasting tin of iced water.

7. When the brownies are ready, remove the tin from the oven and place in the cold water bath. Leave to cool for an hour before cutting into squares. Store in an air-tight container; they're even better the next day.

Are brownies best dense and fudgey, or crumbly and earthily chocolatey? Are walnuts the only acceptable addition – or could you be tempted by these utterly divine, but distinctly un-American cardamom and pistachio numbers?