Friday, January 8, 2010

Day 1 of Hiberantion: Chocolate & Mint Chip Brownies

As I was driving home from the gym last night in near-blizzard conditions, I had the good sense to stop at the grocery store so I wouldn't have to go outside in the near future (the wind chill at 1pm today was -15º... definitely not going out if I don't have to!). Unfortunately I hadn't made a list, so what I came home with was an Amy's Frozen pizza, beer and a combo of dark chocolate and mint chips (they were on sale). While the pizza and beer got me through last night's football game, it didn't get be very far into hibernation food, although the chocolate and mint chips did give me an idea of where to head. So, back out I went today, with the will power to at least make myself go to the gym before the grocery store - if I'm already out, might as well preemptively work off these brownies.

A week ago I was thrilled when my apartment was finally free of Christmas confections -- no more cookies, bars, chocolate covered {insert any word}, and things of that nature to tempt my intentions of eating better. A week... that's how long it took before I was really, truly craving chocolate and these brownies have always hit the spot. I originally set out to make chocolate cookies with the chocolate mint chips in them (I wanted to use my new 3-level cooling racks I got for Christmas), but kept coming up empty when it came to a simple chocolate cookie recipe. After searching through my cookbooks and several internet sites, I decided to just make them into brownies- which was absolutely the right choice!
The original recipe is for chocolate peanut butter chip brownies, which many roommates (past and present) can attest to their deliciousness... but somehow, I think these are actually better.   ...  Yeah, I never thought I'd ever say mint chocolate is better than peanut butter chocolate. Maybe it's because the dark chocolate and mint combo is not as intensely sweet? Whatever the reason, these surprised me with how fantastic they are, so I hope you enjoy them!


Double Chip Brownies (from Hershey's Kitchen Recipes)

3/4 cup Cocoa (obviously the recipe recommends Hershey's)
1/2 tsp baking soda
2/3 cup butter, melted and divided
1/2 cup boiling water
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1-1/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp salt
2 cups Dark Chocolate and Mint chips*

*Can also make with 1 cup milk chocolate chips and 1 cup peanut butter chips

1. Heat oven to 350ºF. Grease 13x9" baking pan
2. Stir together cocoa and baking soda in a large bowl, add 1/3 cup melted butter. Add boiling water until the mixture thickens.
3. Stir in sugar, eggs and remaining 1/3 cup butter and stir until smooth.
4. Add flour, vanilla and salt, blend completely. Stir in chips and spread into prepared pan.
5. Bake 35 to 40 minutes, or until brownies begin to pull away from the sides of the pan. Cool completely on a wire rack.

**I'm sorry I don't have any good pictures of these - my camera picked the exact time I start a food blog to stop working, so hopefully I can get that resolved soon!

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