Emergency Brownies

For dessert the other night, I’d had the perfect plan: blackberry ice cream. The berries were from the farmer’s market and the ice cream maker was courtesy of a guest at our wedding. I let the berries mingle with some lemon juice and sugar to release their juices. I whisked up milk, sugar, and cream, and poured the blackberry juice into the mixture, turning it a soft purple. Then I went into the freezer to retrieve the freezer bowl for the ice cream maker.

It wasn’t there.

I panicked because no matter where it was hiding, if it wasn’t in the freezer, then it wasn’t FROZEN. And we were having friends over for dinner and it was part of my MASTER FANASTIC COOKING PLAN, which, as you can tell from the all caps and bold, was a very important plan indeed.

I took a moment to breathe and started rifling through cupboards, looking for something else to make. Cookies? Nothing to put in them. Cobbler? I couldn’t find my recipe.

Then found it: a can of Ghirardelli Sweet Ground Chocolate. On the back was a recipe for brownies. Eggs? Check. Flour? Check. Vanilla? Check. Butter? Yup.

As I was stiring the batter, I realized this was the first time I’d ever made brownies from scratch. A new, unexpected MASTER FANTASTIC COOKING PLAN, so to speak. And a good one at that. The brownies came out very moist and chewy

 Emergency Brownies

2 eggs

3/4 c sugar

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1/2 c butter, melted

3/4 cup Ghirardelli’s Sweet Ground Chocolate & Cocoa

2/3 cup flour

1/4 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp. salt

Optional: nuts and chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350F. Whisk eggs, sugar, and vanilla together. Add butter and mix some more. Sift ground chocolate, flour, baking powder, and salt together in a separate bowl. Stir dry, sifted ingredients into egg mixture. Spread batter into a greased baking pan and bake for 20 to 30 minutes. As baking pan sizes vary, I’d check after about 20 minutes.