Nathaniel, unsurprisingly, is a Star Wars fan. And Nathaniel owns a very entertaining book called The Star Wars Cookbook. No, really, he does.
We’ve made Wookie Cookies before, but this time Nathaniel really wanted the Bossk Brownies. I’ve had some bad experiences with brownies, but I decided to give it a go. For the boy.
At the very beginning of this operation, I had two supercute helpers.
He has a Star Wars t-shirt on, plus he made the request, but it was Juliet who stuck with me at least as far as the dry ingredients. She started out by measuring the flour; she loves to scoop it into the measuring cups and then pour it in once I’ve leveled them off.
She saw me take out the cocoa powder and just as I got started measuring it, Juliet heard the call of her big brother. “I’m going to go outside in the back yard and play with the hose.” Bye bye, little helper. I was on my own.
I added in the cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt.
Despite the instructions in the recipe to mix with a wooden spoon, I whisked. I can’t help it, I’m a whisker. And then I added a little espresso powder, because I couldn’t help that either. I just had to.
In a separate bowl, I added the brown sugar & white sugar to softened butter.
Once that was properly mixed, I added the eggs and vanilla, and blended.
The batter felt a little too liquidy to me at that point, but I knew the dry ingredients were coming, so I kept going. Still, I was happy to dump in the flour & cocoa mixture.
That all mixed up into a proper-looking brownie batter. It was dark, and rich, and thick, and smelled like brownies. The recipe offered up the option of adding white chocolate chips or butterscotch chips; I went for the butterscotch.
There was a lot of talk about wooden spoons in the recipe, but I just used a spatula.
Once it was all mixed, it looked pretty good. I poured it into an 8 x 8 glass pan, purchased just hours earlier on our big grocery shopping trip. I’ve been needing a square glass dish for ages and have resorted to using a pie plate in the past, but brownies really should be squares, and a pie dish is not square. The new dish was perfect.I smoothed the top of the batter as best as I could.
It looked just as good when it came out of the oven, and smelled great, although it took a lot longer to bake than the recipe suggested.
The texture was just perfect.
We took the kids out for dinner while the brownies cooled, and then I gave Nathaniel his with some vanilla ice cream, creating one very happy Star Wars fan. Juliet didn’t eat them, of course, because they’re chocolate, but Dave thinks they’re pretty good too, although he misses the crackly top. I had a small piece of one myself, and it was rich and chocolatey and moist and good. A little goes a long way with these. And the butterscotch chips add just the right touch. The espresso powder did its job too, adding just a pinch of the Dark Side for depth of flavor. I suspect the vanilla ice cream was the ideal accompaniment as well, bringing both sides of The Force together in harmony.
As for this Bossk business, Bossk (I’m told) is a bounty hunter. I’m up on my Star Wars, but I had to look it up to remember his appearance in a particularly interesting storyline on Star Wars: The Clone Wars, which Nathaniel & I love to watch together. He also showed up in earlier (real) Star Wars, in a failed attempt to capture Han Solo & Chewbacca. Yet here he is, triumphant on his namesake brownies:
Bossk Brownies (from The Star Wars Cookbook)
Ingredients:
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 (scant) teaspoon espresso powder (optional)
1/2 unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar.
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup white chocolate or butterscotch chips
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter or spray an 8-inch square baking dish.
Put the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt in a small bowl. Stir with a wooden spoon (or a whisk) until well mixed. Set aside.
Put the butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar in one large bowl. Using the electric mixer set on high speed, beat together until well blended and creamy, about 3 minutes. (You can do this with the wooden spoon, but it will take longer.) Beat in the eggs and vanilla extract. Add the flour mixture and stir until blended. Stir in the white chocolate or butterscotch chips.
Pour into the prepared baking dish and smooth the top with a rubber spatula.
Using pot holders, put the baking dish in the preheated oven. Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 25 minutes. (For me it was closer to 35, maybe 40.)
Again using pot holders, transfer the dish to the cooling rack. Let cool completely.
Makes about 16 brownies.
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