Ingredients

Butter-flavor no-stick cooking spray
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, cut up
1 ounce unsweetened chocolate, chopped
1 cup minus 2 tablespoons sifted cake flour
1/2 cup unsifted unsweetened Dutch-processed cocoa
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Generous pinch of ground nutmeg
1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
1 large egg plus 2 large egg whites

1 tablespoon vanilla extract
3 tablespoons water

Directions

Position a rack in the center of the oven
and preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Lightly coat a baking pan with cooking spray.
In a small saucepan, combine the butter and chopped chocolate and set over very low heat
until melted. Stir the mixture and set aside to cool. In a medium-sized mixing bowl,
whisk together the flour, cocoa, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Measure the
sugar into the large bowl of an electric mixer and beat in the cooled butter-chocolate
mixture. Add the egg plus whites, vanilla, and water and beat well. Add the dry
ingredients and mix on low speed just until blended. Don't overbeat. The batter will be
thick. Spoon the batter into the prepared pan, smooth the top, and bake for 22 to 25
minutes; 23 minutes is usually right for me. When done, the top will look dry and a
wooden pick inserted near the edge will come out with a few crumbs but the center will
look slightly gooey. Cool in the pan and cut into squares.
I have been trying for a couple of years to produce a brownie worthy of the name with less
fat and less solid chocolate. My taste testers finally agree that this is it - a great
brownie they would never suspect of being lower in anything. I have cut the classic 58

percent down to 31 percent calories from fat and eliminated 87 calories, 10 g fat, and 22
mg cholesterol from each brownie.
When traditional proportions are disrupted, textures become moist and cakey at best or
dry, insipid, and tough at worst. One rule emerges clearly: The fewer ingredients, the
better the brownie. Avoid the usual low-fat stand-ins: applesauce, yogurt, corn syrup,
canola oil. Use butter, but less, and replace most of the solid chocolate with
rich-tasting Dutch-processed cocoa; retain at least 1 ounce of solid chocolate, however,
for a more complex chocolate taste. A few tricks: Cake flour produced a more tender
crumb than all-purpose, and melting the butter with the chocolate, as opposed to creaming
the solid butter with the sugar, gave a fudgier crumb. A touch of baking powder seems to
enhance the crunch of the top crust.
Faced with the choice of adding high-fat chopped nuts or keeping the 1/4 cup butter, there
was no contest; nuts put us over the top in fat content. However, if you feel deprived
without them, sprinkle about 3 tablespoons of finely chopped walnuts on top before baking;
the changes are modest: 33 percent calories from fat, plus 9 calories and 1 g fat per
brownie.