Art Park Brownies

In honor of Valentine's Day (and prompted by Jill's comment on my last post), here's the recipe for the best brownies I've ever made. Please note that it is ESSENTIAL that you beat the sugar and eggs for the full 10 minutes in a Kitchenaid or similar stand mixer. That's how they get their amazing texture. So, no cutting corners here. But, as long as you are a confirmed chocaholic and have some good-quality chocolate in the house (and who doesn't on a day like today?), the other ingredients are very basic and you should be able to whip these up for an impromptu--and well appreciated--Valentine's Day dessert.

ART PARK BROWNIES
Recipe By: "Tender at the Bone" by Ruth Reichl

2/3 cup butter (unsalted)
5 ounces unsweetened chocolate (best quality--Callebaut and Scharffenberger is what I usually use)
2 tsp vanilla
4 large eggs
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups sugar
1 cup flour, sifted

Butter and flour a 9" square baking pan.
Melt butter and chocolate in double boiler, over boiling water. When melted, add vanilla and set aside.
Beat eggs and salt in mixer. Add sugar and beat on high speed for 10 minutes, or until mixture is quite white. Add chocolate and butter mixture and beat at low speed, just until mixed. Add flour and combine quickly, until there are no white streaks.

Pour batter into baking pan and put in oven. Immediately turn oven dow to 350 degrees and bake for 40 minutes. Do not overbake; these brownies should be fudgy.

Notes: The normal toothpick test will not work on these brownies, but if you want to try pricking them with a toothpick, it should come out not quite clean.

WARNING: Don't read the following nutitional information---too scary!
Per serving: 341 Calories; 18g Fat (45% calories from fat); 4g Protein; 45g Carbohydrate; 88mg Cholesterol; 212mg Sodium