08 September 2014

Made from Scratch: Brownies

Our flat here in Scotland came furnished. Much more furnished that we were planning on it being. It ended up being a huge blessing because so many things that we would want or need from day to day came with the flat and therefore didn't have to be purchased by us. (Beds, dressers, tables and chairs, curtains, new pillows and bedding, desks, pots/pans, and dishes, etc.)

However, two things that didn't come with the flat were baking dishes and food. Can you believe that? They wouldn't stock our flat with food?! The nerve.... Haha, just kidding.

Anyway, the point of all of this being that Dal and I started absolutely from zero when we moved here. No food, no spices, no herbs, etc. So we've slowly over the past few weeks been building back up or staples here. We usually don't realize we need something until we want to make something and we don't have the things we need make that particular item. Do you know what you can bake without baking soda? Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Apparently it's in like every recipe in the world. Go figure.

So as we need something, we put it on the Tesco order (We order our groceries online. BEST thing ever. Period.) and it comes a few days later when we want it delivered. I'm not a big baker in general, I cook a lot, but don't bake much. But guess how much I've been wanting to bake something since I don't have the things to do it? TONS.

Well, we finally built up enough of a pantry stock and have one (singular) baking dish (a gorgeous terracotta square pan) that I felt like I could look up something to make with the girls. They've been begging for chocolate cupcakes. (Guess who doesn't have a muffin tin yet? I bet you can't...) So Friday morning, I looked up a recipe for brownies and had all of the stuff to make them (Shout Hallelujah!), and just for kicks I looked to see if you could make frosting for them even if you didn't have powdered sugar. You totally can. Mind blown. I was skeptical about this frosting, but I shouldn't have been. It was so soft and creamy and since it doesn't have white sugar in it, it's totally healthy right? Right.
They were DELICIOUS. I don't know if were just delicious because we hadn't had dessert in weeks or if they were really that good. Just kidding. I know. They were totally that good. Dal hid them from the girls so we could eat them by ourselves ;)

This recipe is for a nice dense brownie, and it works really well with the light creamy frosting. So here you go.



BEST BROWNIES
(source)

1/2 cup butter (margarine will work)
1 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp. salt (unless you are using salted butter)
1/4 tsp. baking powder

Preheat oven to 350 F (175 C). Grease and flour an 8 inch square pan.
Melt butter in microwave proof mixing bowl. Mix in all re
maining ingredients and spread batter in pan.
Bake for 25-30 minutes and remove when when fork comes out clean.
Cool and then top with frosting (see recipe below).

Chocolate Buttercream Frosting
(source)

1 stick room temperature butter
1/3 cup honey (I used whipped)
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
1 tsp. vanilla extract

In mixing bowl, combine all ingredients and whisk on high until creamy and fluffy. Or if you just have a hand wisk, until your arms hurt. Haha. This will make enough frosting to frost your brownies and use the leftovers for some graham cracker/frosting sandwiches. Yum!

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