How to Make Peppermint Brownies

Jean Tang: Well, the holidays are here. The candy cans are piling up and for one bakery, they were an inspiration. We’re at Baked, a bakery in Brooklyn and they’re going to show us how to make peppermint brownies. So we’re in the kitchen of Baked and I’m standing here with the head baker Blair Van Sant. Blair Van Sant: Yes. Jean Tang: And we are making—tell us what we’re making. Blair Van Sant: We’re making a peppermint brownies today. Jean Tang: So what do you tell us how we start? Blair Van Sant: For this particular recipe I’ve got salt, cocoa powder and AP flour which is all purpose flour and I’m going to sift those together because I’m just sifting to make sure there’s no foreign articles in here. So you know, it’s just kind of safety measure. Jean Tang: Okay. Blair Van Sant: So— Jean Tang: So that is 2 ½ cups of all purpose flour? Blair Van Sant: Yes. Jean Tang: I’ve always love to look of sifted flours. Blair Van Sant: So, you have like you know a few little part pieces in here, you know, you don’t in there, a coco powder and coco powder-- Jean Tang: What kind of coco powder? Blair Van Sant: It’s very sweet. It’s definitely very sweet. So put that together and then I’ll just whisk that together , it doesn’t have to be perfect. Just kind of get everything together. That’s good! Set that aside so that’s going to be the last—one of the last ingredients that we are using. The equivalent 4 sticks of butter. Jean Tang: This is unsalted butter, all right? Blair Van Sant: Unsalted butter, yes. Jean Tang: Okay. Blair Van Sant: 11 eggs and I use—I pull this out ahead of time to just kind of bring out of temperature to incorporate better into the actual brownie better. Jean Tang: That’s good to know. Blair Van Sant: Yeah, so—and I have found that if you crack the eggs on the flat surface you’ll get a cleaner break in the egg, so no pieces of shell will come out. So we’re just going to add that there and this is one pound 4 ounces, it’s a little more than 3 cups. I am actually going to just pour my melted butter. It’s okay if you have few pieces of butter that aren’t melted because we’re actually going to be putting this over a double boiler and you can help it along. I like to work with that high, like I said it just—everything incorporates easier and I'm going to go ahead and add my peppermint extracts and I’d like to add this to the butter and chocolate because this is what the majority of the fat, it’s in the brownies and fat does a really nice job of absorbing flavors, you know, just as long as everything comes together in this nice and warm you’re going to be okay. I’m going to go and prepare my pan and I just a use a food release spray just because it’s really convenient and easy just keep the edges. Jean Tang: Because you’re putting a piece of a— Blair Van Sant: Parchment paper? Jean Tang: Parchment paper. Blair Van Sant: Give a little spray. Jean Tang: Okay. Blair Van Sant: So that’s ready, let’s just set that aside. 3 cups of—regular granulated white sugar. Jean Tang: So that’s 1 packed cup of light brown sugar? Blair Van Sant: Yes. Jean Tang: All right! Blair Van Sant: So, we get all in there and you can basically just want to whisk it until it’s free of lumps. There’s a few in there and it’s okay. You know, three editions, so put in like four eggs and then I will those together. And you definitely don’t want your chocolate and butter mixture to hot because you don’t want to scramble your eggs, so kind of remember that. And I want to get the flour in there. So I am just gently folding this over finger and careful not to bring in any unwanted air and I’m just going to add some white chocolate chips and after just fold it in. Jean Tang: It’s so—wow! It’s kind of so thick. Blair Van Sant: Get it out of the pan and I’m not going to really fuss with it too much, I'm basically just going to push to the sides and then let gravity do the rest of the work. Jean Tang: You’re now fussing because of the glomes? Blair Van Sant: Exactly. Jean Tang: You don’t want to overwork. Blair Van Sant: I don’t want to overwork it, yeah. Jean Tang: Okay. Blair Van Sant: So it’s kind of like shake it out a little bit and make sure there aren’t any air bubbles and we pop it into our preheated oven. And my oven is preheated to 325 but I have a nice big fancy convection oven. Jean Tang: Right. Blair Van Sant: So a lot of— Jean Tang: Which tells what that is, for people who don’t know. Blair Van Sant: It’s basically just it’s a fan that circulates the air around. We rotate it a 180 degrees and then we’re going to put in there for another 7 minutes and then let’s see what happens after that. All right, these should be done and hoping they are. Jean Tang: Me too. Blair Van Sant: You see how it’s just kind of rolling around. Jean Tang: Yeah, yeah. Blair Van Sant: Without leaving a mark. Jean Tang: It’s still moist. Blair Van Sant: It still moist absolutely, absolutely. I just want—you don’t want to leave it in there any longer. Jean Tang: Very minty and so incredibly moist. Blair Van Sant: Absolutely. Jean Tang: This is one delicious brownie.