These are our favorite brownies. I've made them dozens of times over the years and experimented with different Guinness (bottle vs can) as well as lots of different brands of chocolate. We like them best with Ghirardelli chocolate ( I buy the 60% cacao Ghirardelli chips along with the white chocolate chips). I use King Arthur flour and Land O'Lakes butter in all my recipes.
This is not like other brownie batters; it looks totally normal until the last minute when you "whisk in the Guinness" and turns the whole batter to a chocolate-liquid-soup. In my experience the 8" pan and the 25 minutes in the oven combination doesn't work; the center doesn't cook all the way through even with baking up to 40 minutes. I've tried making them in a 9x12 pan and baking only 20 minutes but they aren't as moist inside. I'll experiment with them in cupcake form soon.
We also prefer them with non-whipped cream cheese frosting because it cuts the bitter chocolate nicely and looks like the head on a Guinness! This particular version has a few peppermint candies sprinkled on top. And another hint is to make them a day ahead of time because they taste *way* better the next day!
(I discovered this recipe for Grace Neill's Chocolate and Guinness Brownies inside Chocolatier Magazine, then found it online at npr.org --along with some fabulous looking Irish fare!)
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