Brownies!

This quarter, Dan was in a writing class about food. It wasn't his first choice (his first choice was a writing class about the internet) but he did it anyway, and rocked it! I think he wrote some really good stuff, and I'm proud of him. His last assignment was a restaurant review, so we went out to I Love Sushi for dinner. I got a philidelphia roll (my new fav) and an avocado roll. Dan got a california roll and the teriyaki salmon. The salmon was beautiful, like perfectly grilled and delicious. If any of you readers are ever in Santa Cruz, go to I Love Sushi. It's awesome!

Anyway, the last day of his writing class was this week and they had a potluck. Dan had suggested brownies in his class and everyone was really enthusiastic, so I volunteered to help out. I ended up making, after much debate, brownies with mint frosting. Dan loved them, and apparently so did his classmates! I think you guys will really like these, so give them a try!

4 eggs

2 cups sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup butter

4 oz baking chocolate

1 cup flour

frosting

4 tbsp butter

2 cups powdered sugar

1-1 1/2 tsp peppermint extract

3-4 tbsp cream

green food coloring

Preheat oven to 375F. With a mixer, beat eggs until fluffy. Then beat in the sugar and vanilla. In a saucepan, melt the butter then add the chocolate. Ok so here's what I did, which worked really well. I got the bakers chocolate squares (semi-sweet) and then I kind of shaved them with a knife. I just chopped them up really small. I melted the butter in the saucepan, took it off the heat, and stirred in the chocolate. That way, the chocolate melts just through the heat of the butter and doesn't get burned or anything.

Anyway, after you have a delicious chocolatey sauce, add it to the eggs and sugar mixture. Remember when we made mac and cheese and we tempered the eggs? I did that this time too, just in case.

I didn't want scrambled egg brownies, ya know? So just put a bit of the hot chocolate in the egg and sugar mixture and mix it up so that the eggs are a little bit warmer. Then you can dump in the rest of the chocolate. Mix it up really well, then add the flour. Continue mixing and then you can pour it into a baking dish!

Put them in the oven for 25 minutes. I actually had to put it in for about 40 because my oven is ridiculously old and doesn't cook anything right. You can see in this picture that the edges got a little burned, but like I said, my oven is stupid and by the time the inside was cooked through, the outside was burned. But anyway, while you're waiting for the brownies, you should lick the spoon/bowl. You know you want to.

And here's how to make the frosting: Beat the butter (preferably softened butter) with the sugar until smooth. Then add the cream and peppermint extract. Remember that peppermint extract is really strong, so you might not want to use 1 1/2 tsp, just do 1 tsp and then see if you like it. Beat it all up again, and then add the green food coloring. I used about three drops, but use however much you want to get the right shade you want. Let the brownies cool completely before frosting and oce frosted, put them in the fridge for at least an hour.

So now you have green brownies! Just in time for St.Patty's day!

XOXO

Natalie