My mom sent me this recipe earlier in the week for brownies she’s made and shared with old family friends. This is not the brownie recipe I remember from my youth but apparently they were so popular with one of my parents’ friends that they would make them all the time and they dubbed them “Gail’s Brownies” (after my mom). Since I didn’t remember the brownies at all, I decided to give the recipe a try. Plus it’s been a looooong time since I’ve made any brownie recipe.
brownie ingredients.
- 1 c. butter, softened
- 2 c. granulated sugar
- 4 large eggs
- 1 ⅓ c. sifted all-purpose flour
- 1 c. chopped nuts (optional)
- 4 1-oz squares unsweetened chocolate, melted and cooled
- 2 tsp. vanilla
brownie directions.
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Prepare 9×13-inch pan by greasing or spraying with cooking spray.
- In a stand mixer cream butter until light and fluffy. Add sugar and cream until light and fluffy again. Mix in eggs, one at a time, and then vanilla. Stir in flour, melted chocolate and nuts (if using). Batter will be thick with a whipped-like consistency.
- Bake 30 minutes.
frosting ingredients.
- ¼ c. butter, room temperature
- 2 c. powdered sugar, sifted
- 2 T. cocoa
- ⅛ tsp. salt
- ½ tsp. vanilla
- 2 T. coffee (I subbed coffee for malted milk powder and some milk)
brownie directions.
- Cream butter. Add powdered sugar and cream well. Add cocoa, salt, vanilla and coffee. Mix until smooth
- Spread on completely cooled brownies.
Somewhere in the midst of baking these brownies I turned the timer off. I don’t know how I did this. I walked over to the oven perhaps to turn the oven light on to glance inside and instead … off went the timer. I realized it a few minutes later and thought I remembered that there were 9 minutes left on the timer. At any rate, I reached into the oven and tested the brownies and found that a toothpick came out clean. So I pulled the pan out … having no idea how long the brownies had been in the oven.
I doubled the frosting recipe because when I was making it … it just didn’t seem like it was enough frosting. Also, instead of using coffee, I threw in some Ovaltine malt powder and milk. I’m obsessed with malt flavoring recently.
I wanted to throw some mini-chocolate chips on top these brownies. I swear I bought some at my last grocery store run but it appears I bought regular old semi-sweet chocolate chips instead. (I already have a Costco bag I’m still making my way through so another smaller bag wasn’t needed. Oh well.)
Food Snob 