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I think I am the last person to jump on this bandwagon, though this is certainly a good bandwagon to jump on. I have read so many accounts of bloggers making this famed Baked brownie, even one including thinly sliced bacon on top. (yes my friends, bacon.) For those of you who live under a rock, Baked is a well known bakery in Brooklyn who took the food world by storm with their critically acclaimed brownie recipe, among other delicious looking confections. I believe it was named best brownie or something of that ilk by America’s Test Kitchen, and it was one of Oprah’s favorite things. So you get the point.

I finally received the Baked: New Frontiers in Baking book for my birthday this year from Nick’s sister and her husband (thanks Peter and Andi ), and the first thing I made was of course the brownie.

I decided to wait to make these with my official brownie taste tester and lover of all things chocolate, Nick’s 8 year old son. I may have mentioned before that he is an infuriatingly picky eater, however, he will scarf down any brownie or chocolate baked good I can produce. And even better, he truly enjoys and wants to bake with me.

Even before these were baked, the rich chocolaty batter got 2 thumbs up. And really, how could this not be good, what with 2 sticks of butter, 11 ounces of chocolate, and 2 cups of sugar. Additionally, this was the first use of my batch of homemade vanilla extract, which I will post about eventually.

The verdict from the brownie expert: This was definitely in the top 3 brownies we have ever made and the rest of our family and friends really seemed to enjoy them. However, I will have to say that Dorie Greenspan’s French Brownies are still my favorite and, in my opinion, top these. Though the comparison may not be fair since these recipes yield two very different brownies.

The only problem that I had with this recipe was that I had to bake it almost double the amount of time called for until I got the moist crumb I was looking for. After the 30 minutes per the recipe, my tester was just plain moist and just not cooked at all in the middle. Not sure what happened here.

So does the Baked brownie deserve all the acclaim that it gets? I will say yes. It is a quality recipe that produces a very traditional tasting brownie. I would be interested to actually taste one from the bakery to see if mine differed much from one made by the masters.

You can find the recipe here or buy the book.