Outrageous Brownies

Preheat the oven to 350, heavily butter a 12 x 18 x 1 inch baking sheet, line the bottom with parchment and butter the parchment – your baking sheet must have at least a 1-inch edge.

In a large microwave-safe bowl, add all 3 ingredients and microwave on low in 2 minute increments, checking and stirring the mixture in between, until all is melted.  Once everything is liquified, give it a good stir – this may take a couple of minutes, until it all comes together.  You should end up with a barely warm bowl of smooth chocolate.  Set it aside.

In a large bowl, stir together (do not beat) the eggs, espresso, vanilla and sugar and once it’s well combined, stir in the whole bowl of blended chocolate and butter.  Add in the flour, baking powder and salt and stir until there is no visible trace of flour.

In a separate bowl, combine the pecans, chocolate chips and flour and add all of this into your batter.  Again, stir until there is no trace of flour and then scrape the batter into your prepared pan.  If you push the batter to the corners and try to make the whole thing as level as possible, then you won’t have any overflow.  If you’re worried about a mess in your oven, I suggest laying down foil underneath your pan.

Bake for 20 minutes, then give the pan a tap against the oven shelf to remove any trapped air – the batter will move, but it’ll be fine if you’re careful – then bake it for another 20 minutes.  Do NOT over bake.  I’ve made a couple of pans now and this timing has been perfect.  Allow the brownies to cool completely in the pan before cutting them into squares…they are also lovely refrigerated and they freeze beautifully which is great, because this is a LARGE (fudgy!!) recipe!