Chocolate White Treasure Brownies

These brownies hide creamy white chocolate pockets inside a deep, fudgy chocolate base, like little buried treasures the fork keeps finding. The trick is the order of operations: sugar, butter, and water come to a boil first, then the heat is killed and semi-sweet chocolate is melted into the syrup off the heat.

That boiled-sugar start is what gives these brownies their signature glossy, papery top crust. It is the same technique behind the famous bakery-style brownies you spend a small fortune on at a coffee shop, and it is dead simple to do at home.

Add the eggs one at a time and beat well between each so the syrup does not scramble them. The white chocolate goes in last so the chunks stay whole instead of melting into the batter. Pull them at the 30-minute mark when a tester comes out with moist crumbs, never clean.

Pro Tips

• Cool the chocolate-syrup mixture for a few minutes before adding eggs. Too hot and you scramble them on contact, leaving streaks of cooked egg through the batter.
• Use a real 9-inch pan, not a 9 x 13. The smaller pan is what gives these their thick, fudgy depth. A larger pan thins them into chocolate cake.
• Pull the brownies when the center still wobbles slightly. They set as they cool, and a fully set bake gives you cakey instead of fudgy.
• Cut with a long thin knife wiped clean between cuts. Warm crumbs cling to the blade and tear the cut edges into ragged squares.

Variations

• Swap the white chocolate for chunks of caramel-filled chocolate squares for a salted-caramel brownie hybrid.
• Add a half cup of toasted chopped macadamia nuts for a tropical white chocolate macadamia brownie.
• Fold in a quarter cup of raspberry jam in ribbons through the batter just before baking for a chocolate-raspberry version.