Chocolate Guinness Brownies

Most of the online recipes for Chocolate Guinness Brownies are remarkably similar, and they seem to be based on this recipe for what are called 'Grace Neill's Chocolate and Guinness Brownies' originally published  in "The New Irish Table" by Margaret M. Johnson. Adaptations use more flour, add chocolate chips, play around with the types of chocolate used and bake in a larger pan, but are essentially this recipe.

Having baked them, I can understand why most people use a larger pan - these were too deep for brownies, and it's not often I have that complaint about a recipe - the reverse is usually true! It's difficult, without trying alternatives, to see why white chocolate is used, rather than a lower cocoa solids percentage dark chocolate, but I'm guessing that the extra cocoa butter affects the texture. I used 4oz of white chocolate, 3oz of 85% chocolate and 5oz of 72% chocolate which has extra cocoa butter (Green and Black's 'Chocolate for Cooks'). I also used Murphy's Irish Stout instead of Guinness, but otherwise I followed the recipe exactly, although I added a couple of minutes to the baking time as they didn't seem done at 25 minutes.

Having had two tasting sessions now, I still can't decide if I like them! If someone had handed me a dessert plate, with a slice of this brownie, a drizzle of chocolate sauce and a neat quenelle of sweetened whipped cream, and called it a 'Chocolate and Guinness Terrine' or something similar, I would have been really pleased, but I can't reconcile either the taste or the texture with what I know as a brownie.

It's not very sweet, for one thing. This isn't something I usually complain about, but in this case, the bitterness of the stout beer and the large amount of cocoa, isn't balanced with enough sugar. The stout isn't evident as a flavour, but gives a subtle overtone of bitterness. Then there's the texture - it's very close textured, but in a mousse-y way rather than a cake crumb way. I don't mind dense brownies, but here the close texture doesn't give a dense fudgy feel in the mouth. When eaten it feels light but cloying - there's not much of substance there to chew on - a very difficult sensation to describe. Anyway, it's a texture that's fine for a dessert, but not a cake, if you can see what I'm getting at! Having said all that, it's not an unpleasant flavour, unless you really need more sweetness. I don't think I'm likely to make these again, given the number of better brownie recipes I have, although it's worth noting the recipe for an unusual dinner party dessert!