Decadent Fudge Brownies

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After a long, hard day, we tend to gravitate toward one of two things (sometimes both): booze or junk food. Last week, I just had to have junk food. Lucky for me, my wife made homemade, fudgy, super-chocolaty brownies. These things are so decadent, thanks to Dutch dark cocoa, espresso, and lots of butter, that there is no need to top them with ice cream. Just an ice cold glass of milk and a brownie – that’s all you need to turn any day around. Don’t believe me? Try them for yourself.

Decadent Fudge Brownie Recipe

Ingredients

  • 4 large eggs
  • 1 1/4 cup double dutch dark cocoa
  • 1 tsp. coarse salt
  • 1 tsp. baking powder
  • 1 tsp. espresso powder
  • 1 tbsp. vanilla extract
  • 1 cup unsalted butter
  • 2 1/4 cups sugar
  • 1 1/2 cup flour
  • 2 cups chocolate chips (mix it up to what you like – half dark, half milk, all milk, peanut butter – the world is your oyster, damnit)

Recipe

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease 9 x 13″ pan

  • Beat eggs, cocoa, salt, baking powder, and vanilla for about 4 mins on medium speed
  • Melt the butter with sugar until all butter is melted over low-med heat (do NOT let it bubble)
  • Add hot butter/sugar mixture to the egg/cocoa mixture and stir until smooth
  • Add flour and chocolate chips – stir until smooth
  • Pour batter into the pan and cook for about 30 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean

Dark Chocolate Orange Biscotti

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Cookies are good. Yes, I enjoy cookies. When Christmas ended, I was at least happy to know that there were leftover cookies in the freezer. But that time has ended. No more Christmas cookies. Sad, I know. However, there is hope. For a long time, we would get individually wrapped biscotti in bulk for the ride to work. They were good. But then my wife starting MAKING biscotti. I will never buy individually wrapped biscotti from a big box store again. Biscotti baking is not complicated – just follow the damn directions!

Wifey can make vanilla bean biscotti, chocolate, chocolate macadamia nut, the list goes on. One of my favorites is what I bring to you: Dark Chocolate Orange Biscotti. Subtle hints of orange come through in the actual biscotti, all then dipped in a smooth layer of dark chocolate. What’s not to like?

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Healthiest Chocolate Bar Ever?

In my neverending quest to find weird, wacky candies, I unearthed something surprisingly healthy last weekend: a quinoa chocolate bar!

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Weird, right? They had it in the artisan chocolate section at my Central Market (which is basically the Texas local version of Whole Foods). I just had to buy it ($4.29) because I love quinoa, but also because I knew it would enrage the resident ES quinoa haters. In your face, haters! Made by Alter Eco Foods, this candy bar is objectively good. Seriously, if you didn’t know the crispy bits were quinoa, you’d just think it was a dark chocolate Krackel bar or something.

In all honesty, you’re probably not reaping more benefits from this bar than you would from any other dark chocolate (it has 2g of protein per serving, I don’t think that’s shockingly beneficial), but whatever—I like to pretend I’m being super healthy and responsible when munching on this bad boy. Plus it’s organic! What more do you need? Basically I just lost 5 pounds, lowered my cholesterol, and got my week’s worth of fiber by trying this new candy.*

*No, I didn’t, but whatever.