Chunky Brownies

All you need is love. But a little chocolate now and then doesn’t hurt.

Charles M. Schulz

Happy April Fool’s Day! I woke up the kids this morning and told them there was a big pan of brownies in the kitchen. They ran in to find this:

They loved it and then had fun Facetiming our family and telling them they got to eat brownies (Brown E’s) for breakfast! But after all of that I promised them that we could make real brownies! Now I will admit, this recipe has a couple weird ingredients that probably aren’t a staple in many houses, but I totally recommend giving them a try. First, is the instant espresso I use this in several recipes involving chocolate, I also use it for my iced mochas in the morning, so it’s nice to have on hand. Second, Dutch Processed Cocoa. This type of cocoa is a more neutral cocoa because the beans have gone through a specific wash to neutralize any natural acids, so it has a different flavor. {This is the Dutch Process Cocoa I buy.}Now, you cannot replace regular cocoa with Dutch Process cocoa in every recipe, maybe some day I’ll write a big post about that, but it’s too much for this post! Now, on to these big, fudgy, brownies!

Recipe

• Preheat oven to 350°
• First melt the 1/2 Cup of chocolate chips and set aside to cool to room temp.
• Pour melted butter into a mixing bowl and whisk in sugar until its smooth and a little lighter in color.
• Whisk in eggs until smooth.
• Whisk in vanilla and chocolate. (Make sure your chocolate is room temp, you don’t want to scramble your eggs!)
• Mix dry ingredients together. (I recommend sifting you cocoa into the flour, cocoa tends to be lumpy.)
• Using a spatula fold dry ingredients into the wet ingredients.
• Fold in the chocolate chips and walnuts.
• Line a 9×9 pan with parchment and bake for 30 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. (Remember there are chocolate chips and these are fudgy brownies, so there might be some sticky crumbs on the toothpick, or chocolate, but it shouldn’t have batter on it.

**Dutch process cocoa can be replaced with unsweetened cocoa powder, but really, try out dutch cocoa if you can!!

***Walnuts are obviously optional!

Also, if you use a 8×8 pan instead then you will add some extra time on and they will be a little thicker. I really hope you all love these brownies, they aren’t over the top sweet and they are nice and fudgy!!! I hope everyone had a fun April Fool’s Day!! Enjoy these Brown E’s…I mean Brownies!