Chocolate Brownie Cups Recipe

I don't get in the mood for brownies very often. I'm a person who likes chocolate, but would rather have it play a supporting role, not be the entire show, if you catch my drift. Cupcakes appeal to me because they're individually sized portions of a dessert that can be as simple or complex as you want them to be. Mix-ins in brownies, on the other hand, enhance the brownies but don't substantially change them. At least, this is my reasoning. Feel free to disagree.

In any case, I decided to whip out one of my dessert cookbooks, the Hershey's Classic Recipes book. Under the Irresistible Brownies section, there's a recipe for "Best Brownies". Well, I was sold.

Too bad they were a disaster. [ sad face ]

I suppose it's my fault for not having a proper brownie pan, so I baked them in cupcake tins instead. I tend to do that with a lot of recipes, but it's never been a huge issue. I was suspicious at the light brown, barely chocolately color and taste. It reminded me more of dry cake than brownies, so I decided to do a little kitchen magic of my own.

So, I present to you my totally non-scientific brownie recipe (makes 6 brownie cups):

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup butter (1/2 stick) softened
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 egg yolks
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup cocoa
• 1/4 cup melted chocolate
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• dash of salt

Heat the oven to 350F. Stir the butter, sugar, and vanilla together. Beat the eggs separately and add that into the mixture. Combine the flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt in another bowl. Add that into the wet mixture a half at a time. Blend until the batter is smooth. Bake for 20 minutes.

I think next time I'll cut down on the baking time because I burnt mine after baking for 23 minutes. I also prefer a dusting of confectioner's sugar instead of the chocolate frosting, but you can easily whip up a batch of your own.

Happy baking~