Chewy-Dense Brownies

Back from Malacca! Can't say I enjoy the trip too much because it was like a pigging out tour. Bus ride-sleep-eat-bus ride-sleep-eat. Not too good for my waistline. The irony is I lost weight despite having eating loads there. Think I lost muscle mass lying around in the bus all day.
Have been tasked with Project: Brownies by my team at work for this year end, if all go well, it'll come to something by end of this year. We'll see. So I'm back to trying out new brownie recipes which you shall be seeing more of them soon, in search of the chewy and cakey, since I've gotten a few fudgy-s going in my earlier recipes which I'm already pretty pleased. It gets kinda confusing what should be the standard brownie in Singapore. Most of the brownies sold are tall and more towards cakey. They're usually served warm with a scoop of ice cream. Whereas for american recipes, the more fudgy, the better. So I don't know, I'm just going to do what I think is good since I'm the baker hurhur.

So here's my first attempt for my new project. Chewy! Since I have not been doing anything from David Lebovitz for a while, guess I should eh?

Dense and moist brownies they are. It has the right amount of chocolate, in fact my colleagues prefer them over my previous brownies due to the addition of pecans which adds crunchiness and nutty flavor to the brownie and the chocolate is not overpowering. They also raved about the crusty flakey top.

In terms of chewy-ness, it is ironically not the most chewy brownie I had. In fact I think my previous ones are more chewy than these. With that, I actually prefer my previous attempt heh heh. I'm sure I've given it a good vigorous stir during the 30 secs matter-of-life-and-death-brownie-moment. Maybe it will take a minute instead of 30 secs for my skinny arms to achieve the same chewy texture since Mr Lebovitz is a grown up man himself, definitely have more muscles hurhur. Nevertheless, it's a pretty good brownie recipe to add into ice cream as a mix-in as they stay chewy even though I've froze them in the freezer for a bit for picture perfect cuts.
Chewy-Dense Brownies (adapted from David Lebovitz's The Perfect Scoop)

Ingredients:
113g unsalted butter
113g semisweet chocolate (I use Valrhona Alpaco 66%, even though book recommends 55% to 64%)
250g granulated sugar (I use 230g, like minus 20g of sugar will make much difference :Þ)
2 large eggs
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
70g all purpose flour
1/8 tsp salt
85g semisweet or bittersweet chocolate chips (I left them out)
75g pecans/walnuts/whatever nuts, coarsely chopped and toasted (only added 55g pecans as there's all I'm left with LOL)

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 175°C. Line an 8-inch square pan with aluminum foil, making sure the foil covers the bottom and sides. Spray foil with nonstick cooking spray
2. In a medium saucepan, melt the butter over med-low heat. When butter is melted, reduce heat to low and add chocolate, stirring constantly until melted
3. Remove from heat and stir in sugar. Add eggs one at a time, mixing between each addition
4. Add vanilla
5. Stir in the flour and salt, and stir vigorously for 30 seconds until batter is smooth
6. Stir in chocolate chips, if using
7. Pour batter into prepared pan and bake for 30 minutes, until the center is barely set. Remove from oven and allow to cool. Store at room temperature