Chocolate thoughts from Chef Steve Keneipp

For your reading pleasure, Young Audience is delighted to present Steven Douglas Keneipp MS, CCP, Chef/proprietor The Classic Kitchen 28 years, Community Nutritionist St. Vincent's Hospital 20 years, Freelance travel/food writer, Young Audiences Indianapolis board Member and Chocolate Fest Chairman 21 years, Instructor of Culinary Arts and Nutrition at The Art Institute of Indianapolis. Steve was kind enough to share some of his thoughts and knowledge with our blog, as well as one of his tasty recipes.

Steve's Double Chocolate Brownies
Yield: 16

6 Tablespoons unsalted butter
1/2 cup Dutch processed cocoa such as Droste
1 cup granulated sugar2 large eggs, room temperature
1-teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 c. unbleached white flour
1/8-teaspoon salt
1 cup chocolate chips, good quality such as Ghiradelli dark
1/2 cup English Walnuts, coarsely chopped (optional)

Preheat oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit and spray an 8"x 8" pan with a vegetable non-stick. Disposable foil pans work very well and can easily be wrapped in plastic and given as a gift.

In a glass two quart mixing bowl melt butter in the microwave. Remove from the microwave and whisk in the cocoa. Using a wooden spoon or spatula, stir in the sugar, eggs, and vanilla until well combined. Stir in flour, salt, chocolate chips, and nuts. Spread mixture into prepared pan and bake about 30 to 35 minutes or until slightly firm in the center and when the outside crust just begins to leave the sides of the pan. Cool on rack. Cut into sixteen pieces. Brownies could be dusted with a little powdered sugar or cocoa if desired.

Variations:

-Eliminate walnuts; spread out half the brownie mixture, pour over a 1/4 cup melted raspberry jam, top with remaining brownie mixture.

-Eliminate walnuts; add zest of one orange finely chopped, flavor with pure orange extract instead of vanilla then splash warm brownies with a little Grande Marnier (optional).

-Substitute pecans for walnuts, add 1/2 cup dried cherries or dried currants.

-Eliminate nuts; add 1/2 cup crushed peppermint hard candy, substitute peppermint extract for vanilla extract.

-Substitute pine nuts for walnuts. Substitute light olive oil for butter...do not use extra virgin olive oil as it would be too strong in flavor, then add the finely grated zest of one orange.

My recipe for brownies was developed as a request to speak at a conference of Indiana secondary consumer science teachers. I was given the freedom of choosing my own topic. The objective of my session was to teach the concept of making something from scratch that would prove better than anything store-bought. This idea would then be taught to secondary age students. I created my brownie as a vehicle for my message. Not only did it taste better than any packaged mix from the supermarket, but it also cost less and freed the maker from opening up some corporately created mix with poor quality ingredients. It also allowed for variations to teach how one could customize a recipe, thus giving it a new personalized identity.

I shared the recipe with Steve Pratt, a friend and at that time a food editor for the Chicago Tribune, when he and I had lunch at Neiman-Marcus. It was just before Christmas, so I had a gift basket for him that had some of my caramels, herbs, Red River pecans, and a pan of my brownies with the recipe. A few weeks later he called me to tell me to look at the next day's Trib. I was surprised the next night to see my recipe and story in the Chicago paper. The recipe went out on the wire and ended up in papers around the country. My friend Barbara Adachi later told me that it even appeared in the Tokyo paper, where she and her husband had a home. Susan Purdy, one of America's great writers of dessert, later asked if she could include it in her book, The Family Baker. It is still one of my favorite recipes from my repertoire and is also one of my simplest to prepare. I continue to create new variations. The one with the light olive oil is a recent version and it never fails to please and surprise guests when they learn the ingredients. Baking them in mini-muffin tins or in a nine inch round cake pan creates further possibilities.

-Chef Steve