Michael Recchiuti’s Lifelong Fudge Brownie Love Affair

Long before there was an official product, Michael Recchiuti was an entrepreneurial brownie salesman. The confectionary instinct was prevalent with Michael even in his youth, when the young entrepreneur sold his homemade treats in the neighborhood surrounding his childhood home. “The origin of our brownies started way back when I was a little boy, when I’d make them with a childhood friend of mine and sell them on the street. The brownies then were fudgy just like the ones we sell now, the only difference was there was more sugar in it, and our chocolate was just okay. Fast forward to Recchiuti Confections and I decided I wanted to make our own brownies again, but to pull it off you have to use a fair amount of sugar, that’s why they’re so fudgy, and you also don’t bake them all the way through.

I decided to use unsweetened chocolate, like a baker's chocolate, a chocolate lacquer from Valrhona. So when you bite into the brownie it’s sweet, it's kind of fudgy but at the same time you get this very intense chocolate hit, but it's offset by the sweetness of the brownie and the texture.

When we make the brownies we melt a specific amount of unsweetened chocolate and then we blend it with eggs and sugar and eventually add some flour. The goal is to make a really soft unctuous dough. We make it in this large, eighty quart bowl, it's really heavy, really dense, so we have to scoop it out, weigh it and spread it out into a sheet pan. When you’re baking it the way you can tell when it’s finished is to watch for the tiny layer of sugar that rises to the surface.
That’s usually the indicator for me that it’s done, the sugar blooms.”

The world has changed a lot since the little salesman first hit the street, but even as a full fledged professional chef, Recchiuti’s love affair with brownies continues to be as strong as ever.

Individual brownies are available for purchase at the Recchiuti Ferry Building Store, and the six piece Brownie Box is available online.

Make your own Recchiuti Brownies from our recipe page.