I’m not the only avid cook in my apartment, my roommate Stephanie is too.  She is a photographer and a great chef who takes pride in not following directions in her cooking.  I do a lot of cooking on my own, but it is always a pleasure when Stephanie is in the kitchen as well.  Last week, she was intent on baking brownies, gluten-free, but also xanthan gum-free.  I was wary, but she was stubborn.  Good thing, because they were out of this world.

The brownies are Jamie Oliver’s “Fifteen Chocolate Brownies” from his wonderful book, Cook with Jamie, modified to be gluten-free.  She despises the taste of xanthan gum more than I do, and decided to just replace the flour with Bob’s Gluten Free Flour Mix, and NOT add the xanthan gum.  Genius.

1 cup+ 2 tbs unsalted butter

7 oz dark chocolate (100% cocoa)

1 1/2 oz finely chopped nuts

3/4 cup cocoa powder

1 teaspoon baking powder

2 cups sugar

4 large eggs

Preheat the oven to 350˚ F and grease a 8×8 inch pan and line it with wax or parchment paper for ease of brownie removal and clean up!

Melt the chocolate with the butter in a double boiler.  Stir it to keep it from burning.  You can also do this in the microwave, in spurts of 15-30 seconds each, stirring after each spurt.

Combine the dry ingredients- GF flour mix, cocoa powder, baking powder, and sugar- into a large mixing bowl.  Make sure to mix these well; ideally it should be a light brown with minimal contrast.  You could just then pour the chocolate butter goo into the dry ingredients, but this will result in difficult mixing.  It is best to transfer the chocolate butter into a larger bowl, and then slowly fold in the dry ingredients.

Keep mixing until the chocolate is silky smooth and a beautiful almost black brown color. Chop the nuts.  We chopped the nuts in our magic bullet, and it worked beautifully.  Fold in the nuts and make sure they are distributed evenly throughout the batter.

Pour the batter into your pan, spreading it evenly.  Bake for 35-40 minutes.  You’ll know it is done when the top has a firm crust, but an inserted knife comes out slightly fudgy.

Let the brownies cool for 10 minutes to let the fudge settle into divisible pieces.  Then, I would recommend eating them with vanilla ice cream, as in the picture above.  The brownies are insanely good, but a nice 2×2 inch piece is too rich to be eaten entirely on its own.  Believe me, I tried.  If you don’t have vanilla ice cream, a cold glass of milk will do just fine.

Also, these brownies keep really well; they are still moist after a week!