Hot Fudge Brownies

I was ready to make banana bread since we needed to use some bananas anyway, but noooo! Everyone else in the family had their hearts set on brownies for some reason. So, of course I ended up making brownies. I still haven't bought any walnuts since making those gorgeous sticky buns, so I had to make walnut free brownies. I'm not sure just how long to bake this recipe. This is one recipe that I just keep an eye on and when it looks right, I take it out of the oven.

I'll tell you the truth. I don't love brownies. I like them, but I just don't love them. I have NEVER liked brownies from a mix. They really turn me off for some reason. This is not a snobbishness that I developed as I got older. I couldn't stand brownies even when I was a kid. It wasn't until I tasted homemade brownies that I decided that they had any redeeming value. Trust me, homemade brownies have PLENTY of redeeming value. With all that chocolate, butter and eggs, how could anyone go wrong? So now, I eat brownies, even if I don't want to marry them.



Brownies

1 cup flour
2 cups sugar
1 cup butter
3/4 cup cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons vanilla
4 eggs, beaten
1 cup walnuts, roughly chopped

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Melt butter and add cocoa. Stir until smooth. Mix dry ingredients in a bowl. Add eggs and vanilla. Stir until moistened. Add cocoa and butter mixture. Stir until smooth. Fold in chopped walnuts. Bake in greased 9 by 13 pan. Its done when the edges are set and the center is only barely set.

Now, about the hot fudge sauce:

I have a couple of hot fudge sauce recipes. I couldn't make the one I originally planned to make because I discovered that I was out of evaporated milk. So I thought I'd make the one that uses chocolate chips and sweetened condensed milk. I got the idea to tweak it a bit and use squares of unsweetened baking chocolate instead of the chocolate chips. I really liked the result. The sauce turned out to be less sweet, more like a dark chocolate sauce.

I got a little hasty when I melted my chocolate and almost ruined my sauce. I had the heat a bit high. Don't do that! You need to melt it over a nice, even, low heat (a double boiler would be nice). The chocolate was starting to stiffen up over that high heat, so I added some sweetened condensed milk to smooth it out a bit, and I think it caused the chocolate to sieze. Uh Oh. I turned the heat down, added the rest of the milk, and stirred like crazy. Ultimately, the recipe turned out ok, but I thought it was history for a minute there!


Hot Fudge Sauce
1 can sweetened condensed milk
4 ounces unsweetened baking chocolate
1/4 cup water
2 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon vanilla

Melt chocolate in a small sauce pan. Stir in sweetened condensed milk. Heat through. Remove from heat and add butter and vanilla. Add water to thin to desired consistency.

I'm sure you don't need directions on how to make hot fudge brownies, but here you go:

Top a square of brownie with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and some hot fudge sauce. Eat.