Although I love baking, I rarely make brownies from scratch, much to the chagrin of my chocolate loving sweetheart. But it’s easy to see why, right? Betty Crocker does such a better job than me. Why mess with a good thing, when [...]]]>

Although I love baking, I rarely make brownies from scratch, much to the chagrin of my chocolate loving sweetheart. But it’s easy to see why, right? Betty Crocker does such a better job than me. Why mess with a good thing, when brownie mixes are as close as you can get to brownie perfection?

But fortunately for me, living in China means that I have no access to brownie mix. Well, okay I’m exaggerating. I do, but brownie mixes are expensive and you have to go to Metro, a 45-minute bus ride away, to get them. So making brownies from scratch became the more attractive alternative the other night and I hopped on Allrecipes.com and got this recipe for “Rich Chocolate Brownies”. And I’m so glad I did.

If you like super-fudgy brownies, you might want to tweak this recipe a little bit (try omitting the baking powder and/or reducing the baking time). This recipe makes a brownie somewhere between cakey and fudgy. We found they got a little moister and fudgier and were at their peak the day after they were baked.

Chocolate Brownies
From Allrecipes.com

To cut down on the saturated fat, I substituted vegetable oil for the melted butter originally called for in the recipe.  If you’re planning to put icing on your brownies, reduce the sugar to 1 cup.

1 ¼ cup sugar
2 large eggs
½ tsp vanilla extract
½ cup oil
½ cup flour
1/3 cup cocoa powder
¼ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt

Preheat oven to 350 F.
Mix the sugar, eggs, vanilla, and oil together in a bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk together the remaining ingredients (flour, cocoa, bp, and salt). Add the dry ingredients to the wet and stir together until smooth. Pour into a buttered 8 or 9-inch square baking pan.

Bake 20-25 minutes, or until edges of brownies are just starting to pull away from sides of the pan. Cool and serve.