Category Archives: Chocolate

Kahlua Brownies (aka Shower Brownies)

Kahlua Brownies are great for serving at parties because they’re pretty and delicious and in a completely different league than your traditional brownie.  They gained the nickname “Shower Brownies” because our friend who gave us the recipe served them at so many wedding and baby showers.  This recipe makes a half sheet pan worth of brownies, which, cut in 1+ inch squares, yields 88 brownies.  If you serve them, you will get requests for the recipe!

Source:  Jane Hyde gave the recipe to my family, and she found it in Mississippi magazine.  It was Jane’s daughter who dubbed them Shower Brownies.

Difficulty:  Medium (just because it has 3 layers so it’s more time consuming than your regular brownie)

Brownies

1 ½ cups butter

3 cups sugar

6 eggs

6 ounces unsweetened chocolate, melted and cooled

1 ½ teaspoon vanilla extract

1 ½ cups flour

¾ teaspoon salt

Kahlua Brownies Ingredients

Cream butter and sugar.  Add melted chocolate.

Shower Brownies Step 1

Add eggs, one at a time.

After all the eggs have been added
After all the eggs have been added

Add vanilla.  Stir salt and flour together and then add to mixture.  Pour into greased 12×17 jelly roll pan (“half sheet pan”).

 Kahlua Brownies Step 3

Bake about 20 minutes at 350, or until just done. Remove from oven and sprinkle with a little Kahlua.  Don’t you hate it when recipes are vague?  I use a half tablespoon or a little more.  The variation in color of the chocolate in the picture below shows streaks and drops of Kahlua.

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Icing

6 tablespoons butter

4 ½ cups powdered sugar

6 tablespoons milk

1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract

1 ½ teaspoons Kahlua

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Beat until smooth.  Spread over cooled brownies.

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Refrigerate or leave on the counter for awhile to let the icing set.

Glaze

2 ounces semi-sweet chocolate

2 tablespoons butter

Melt over low heat.

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Once it has cooled a little, place in plastic bag.

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Snip tiny bit off corner of bag and drizzle over frosted brownies in a criss cross pattern.  I like it to look a little messy, which is convenient since it’s difficult to be perfectly precise with the plastic bag method of drizzling.

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If you want the lines to go straight all the way to the end of the pan, place the pan on a counter you can sprinkle with chocolate (or wax paper like I did in the picture), then drizzle past the edges of the pan so that your turnaround spot is on the counter, not the brownies.  Drizzle with a fast sweeping motion.  You can freeze these for a few weeks as long as they’re in an airtight container.  I use the plastic lids for my pans and then wrap tightly in foil.  Cut in 1 inch squares and serve room temperature or a little cool.

thanks to my mom for this photo!

Variation

One day I’m going to experiment with replacing the Kahlua with peppermint extract and tinting the frosting green or pink to show that it’s mint.  However, every time I start to make them, I think… but they’re SO tasty with Kahlua, why mess with a great thing?  So I haven’t done it yet, but I will, and then I’ll blog about it.

The Story:  The trees are covered with ice, and the temperature is dropping dropping dropping, so i’m cooking cooking cooking today.  I’m making these for a Christmas party next weekend.  I’m freezing them tightly wrapped in foil until the day of the party to keep them as fresh as possible.

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Really Fudgy Hot Fudge Sauce

This fudge sauce is, as advertised, really fudgy as well as thick and smooth – just exactly what fudge sauce should be.   It will make you wonder why you ever wasted any time with Hershey’s syrup.  There is really no comparison.

Source:  my mom, of course

Difficulty:  Easy

½ cup butter

2 ½ squares unsweetened chocolate

2 cups sugar

1 cup evaporated milk (use 3/4 cup evaporated milk and 1/4 cup whipping cream to really take it up a notch)

½ cup light corn syrup

1 teaspoon vanilla extract (or kahlua or other flavoring of choice)

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In a heavy saucepan, melt the butter and chocolate together.  Add the sugar and stir until blended.  Then add the corn syrup and evaporated milk gradually, stirring to incorporate.  Continue stirring over low to medium heat until the sugar is dissolved.  Then bring to a boil and let boil for 1 ½ to 2 minutes or until a little thinner than you want it to be.  It thickens as it cools – see the difference between the hot and cooled fudge sauce as it runs off the spoon in the pics below.  Remove from heat and add vanilla.

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Serve warm over ice cream.

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Recipe yields about 3 1/3 cups of fudge sauce.  This fudge sauce can be made weeks ahead of time and kept in the refrigerator.  Of course, it will likely suffer some attrition over time if you have a sweet tooth like mine!

The Story:  When I was growing up my mom and her friend started the Christmas tradition of a fudge sauce and peppermint ice cream swap.  My mom would make fudge sauce for both families, and her friend would make homemade peppermint ice cream for both families.  This fudge sauce served warm over any ice cream is excellent, but it really takes it to another level to serve it over homemade peppermint ice cream.

I hesitated to even mention Hershey’s syrup in the description at the top, because really, it doesn’t belong in the same sentence with this fudge sauce. Let’s leave Hershey’s syrup to what it does best – flavor milk.

 

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French Silk Frosting

The search for your favorite chocolate frosting recipe is now over!  This is far and away the best chocolate frosting I have ever eaten.   

Difficulty:  Easy

Source:  as with so many recipes, my mom

4 cups powdered sugar

1 cup (2 sticks) softened butter

3 ounces melted and cooled unsweetened chocolate*

1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract

½ teaspoon cognac

3 tablespoons milk

*The most important (and easiest to botch) part of this recipe is melting the chocolate without cooking/burning it.  If when you mix the chocolate into the mixture, you have tiny chocolate pieces all throughout, you overheated the chocolate.  The frosting will still taste pretty good.  It will just not be homogeneous and won’t taste as great as it would have tasted.

In mixer bowl, blend sugar, butter, and vanilla on low speed.  Then add melted chocolate and cognac.  Gradually add milk.  Beat on high speed until smooth and fluffy.  The frosting gets lighter colored when it is fluffy enough.

The Story:  Our family refers to this as “Don’s First Birthday Frosting,” since that was the first time my mom used this recipe.  Don is the dad of the 2 year old whose birthday cake was the train cake, so we’ve been using this frosting recipe for quite a long time.  When a friend of mine tried this frosting (and learned the name of it), she said, “Tell Don I’m SO thankful he was born!”

This pic is of my godson’s third birthday cake.  So far each year I’ve changed the cake shape but never the frosting!

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