No Thinking, Just Brownies

My mom made brownies this weekend and sent me a text about it. I was jealous. I made brownies too.

She tweaked them to make them freaking amazing turtle brownies. I tweaked them to make a cafe caramel. Which turned out better?


We'll never know... because I am not eating any more brownies this week and my batch has been almost completely finished by the only two people that live here.

Melt butter on top of chocolate so the hot butter helps the chocolate along. 

This brownie recipe was something of a rite of passage in my house. When I was 15 and I didn’t have this recipe memorized, I was gawked at by both of my sisters who had it committed to memory as if it were as simple as tying a shoe.

Embarrassed, I committed it to memory right then.

Sugar!

So, for these brownies there is no ingredient gathering. I just get one thing out at a time, mix it in, and put it away. That’s how these brownies go. There’s no checking the page, so there’s no need to have everything ready to go.

Huevos!

These are emergency brownies. These are “I need chocolate ASAP” or “I just need to stir something, dammit”. These are not “time to try something new in the kitchen”... but you know what? They make everything better. They are rich and fudgey and you can add anything you feel like to them to make them even more amazing.

Flour!

This weekend, I was sick. I wanted to bake, but I had zero interest in checking back and forth between what I was doing and what it said on the page.

And my mom had sent me that text about her brownies.

Vanilla! (and coffee!)

And I still had a few homemade caramels in the fridge. That was that. I was making brownies… with caramel… and coffee. It couldn’t hurt to make these babies a little richer, right?

No thinking, just brownies. 

1 stick of butter

2 oz. unsweetened chocolate

1 c. sugar

2 eggs

3/4 c. flour

1 tsp. vanilla

(optional)

1 packet of instant coffee (Starbucks VIA or other. I used Nescafe)

2 caramels, cut into small pieces. 

Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease a 8 x 8 baking dish. 

Melt the chocolate and butter together in a bowl. Stir until chocolate is dissolved. 

Add the sugar, mix in evenly. Then eggs. Then flour. Then vanilla. Same deal. If you're adding the coffee, go ahead and mix it in evenly too. 

Pour the batter into your greased baking dish. After you've gotten everything you can into the baking dish, feel free to lick the bowl. 

Throw your chopped caramel pieces on top and bake for 30 minutes. 

Next time, feel free to add more caramel.