WHY USE COCOA POWDER AND CHOCOLATE?
The combination of cocoa powder and chocolate is essential in brownies.
Cocoa powder helps provide the delicious chewiness that is essential for the brownie’s crust. If you are a bit put off by using cocoa powder, try it and then make up your mind.
You can buy fancy cocoa powders these days but being completely honest, I use ones I can buy in the supermarket which are nothing too fancy.
If you’re stuck, you can use hot chocolate at a push, but I would use this as a last resort.
The chocolate is also needed as it provides the fudgy texture – again essential.
WHICH CHOCOLATE IS BEST TO USE?
Traditionally brownies are made with good quality dark chocolate with a high percentage or cocoa solids.
I can sometimes find this too rich. So what I tend to do is use a mix of milk and dark chocolate. This still makes an incredibly gooey, rich brownie but it is more to my taste.