Brownies

Hi Everyone. I'm still tired from all the activity even though it's been almost a week since my daughter and I returned. Have to get back to blogging, but am going to punt today.

Here is my easy brownie recipe that everyone seems to go gaga for. The secret is using Dutch-processed cocoa. Hershey's makes a Special Dark blend of cocoa with a gold label that is a mix of regular and alkali-processed cocoas; this is what I often use since the honest-to-goodness Dutch-processed stuff is a pain to find. Trust me, everything chocolate is so much better made with the alkali-processed (also known as Dutch-processed). If you want to convert to save yourself all that saturated chocolate fat, one ounce (one square) of unsweetened baking chocolate is worth 3 tablespoons cocoa plus a tablespoon of oil. Also, since I avoid adding saturated fat whenever I can, I also substitute safflower or canola oil for the butter/margarine in these brownies; no one has yet noticed a difference.

Here 'tis:

Brownies

1 cup butter or margarine
2 cups sugar
2 tsp vanilla
4 eggs
3/4 cup (12 tablespoons) cocoa
1 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
chocolate chips

Melt butter or margarine. Mix in sugar and vanilla, then eggs one at a time. (Note: make sure butter has cooled a bit after melting or it will cook eggs :-) Sift and add cocoa, flour, baking powder, and salt and mix until smooth. Add chocolate chips.

Pour batter into greased 13 x 9 x 2 pan (or line pan with foil --> but when removing baked brownies be careful foil doesn't shred; if it does make sure there are no little foil pieces stuck to the bottoms of the brownies!) Bake at 350F for 30 to 35 minutes. For best results to avoid crumbling brownies let these babies cool for an hour or so before cutting and removing from pan.