Brownies

Yes, it's another dessert recipe and I promised something different....but here's the thing. When it's been raining for 40 days and 40 nights all I want to do is sit inside and bake stuff like this - an incredibly simple, no fuss brownie.

This is the brownie recipe I grew up baking. It's simple, delicious, and can be made with regular ingredients in the cupboard without special grocery trips.

I'm not a huge chocolate fan but when I was flipping through the recipes tonight I kept coming back to the brownies.

Make us......MAKE US.....

So I did. It's been at least a decade since I've made these and I had forgotten how simple and delicious they were. The forgotten brownie amidst the overly sweet and complicated world of boxed brownies with too many layers of decadence.

My mother always added walnuts to the batter. Tonight I topped half with sliced almonds, leaving 1/2 of the pan un-contaminated by nuts for the nut-hating husband.



What you need:

• 1 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup cocoa powder
• 1/3 cup melted butter
• 2 unbeaten eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 3/4 cup flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder

Nuts for mixing or topping if you wish. 

Git 'er done

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. 

Mix together sugar and cocoa. Stir in melted butter. Stir in eggs and vanilla extract. Make sure everything is mixed really well. 

Sift together or otherwise mix the remaining dry ingredients together really well....then combine with the wet mixture. 

Mix in nuts if desired.

Pour into a greased 8x8 baking pan. 

Top with nuts if desired. 

Bake 20-25 minutes, until the edges start to slightly pull away. DO NOT OVER BAKE. In fact....just go ahead and pull it out of the oven at designated time. You will then panic when it appears completely unbaked in the center....but trust me. It will be perfectly cooked as it sets and then you will have chewy perfectly baked brownies instead of crunchy little chocolate-like brownie cardboard.