Fun Brownies

I've been at my sister's house a couple of days, and we have pretty much eaten all the key lime pie so we needed a new desert. You never know what kind of ingredients people keep at their houses, but luckily my sister had everything you need for some basic brownies.

Once again I am cheating and using pictures I actually took while I was in China. Turns out the Chinese love brownies! I ended up making these brownies all the time while I was there, and managed to adjust this recipe to just my liking. It's a smaller sized recipe because I had a small oven while I was there. I also realized I've been making them in a sort of strange way due to the fact that I didn't have a microwave to melt butter in while I was there. Although I kind of like them this way.

Ingredients:
1/2 Cup Butter or Margerine
3/4 Cup Sugar
1/3 Cupe Cocoa Powder
2 Eggs
1 tsp Vanilla
1/4 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 Cup Flour

What to Do:

Preheat oven to 350
Grease an 8x8 inch pan


Melt butter. You can do this in a microwave, but I did it by putting it in a bowl above a pot of hot water, sort of like a homemade double boiler. Then mix in the sugar.

Next, stir in the cocoa powder. I usually do it while I still have the butter and sugar in the double boiler. I once read that heating up the cocoa powder before making your brownies will help release extra chocolaty flavor. I don't know if it really matters, but people do seem to enjoy the chocolatyness my brownies. If you just melted your butter in the microwave, you can just throw in the cocoa with the flour later.

After seeing this picture, one of my students begged me not make her try the brownies. What a silly girl! Anyways, whisk in the eggs and vanilla. Make sure your butter mixture is not hot enough to cook your eggs.

Add in the flour, baking powder, and salt. I don't usually sift my flour, but I do try to make sure it is nice and airy. If you have a heavy pile of flour, you will have heavy brownies. Anyways, mix up everything together and pour it into you pan.


Bake for 20 to 25 minutes. Your home will start smelling chocolaty when they get close to being done. Otherwise you can do the old toothpick trick to see if they are done.

If you show some restraint and let them cool completely in the pan before cutting them, they will stay moister. But then again, what's better than a warm brownie?

You can always throw in some small pieces of chocolate or nuts into this recipe. I also like it with a little almond extract thrown in.