chocolate

First a recipe for chocolate milk. Don't worry if you're not a milk lover.... there's The Most Awesome Brownie recipe in the second half of this post :)

Savannah loves chocolate milk. I think she inherited that from my mom. Who happened to be in town last week. What better time to try my first giant batch of homemade chocolate milk?

Homemade Chocolate Milk:

4 cups instant powdered milk
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup cocoa
1 cup non-dairy creamer (optional)
2 tsp vanilla
1/8 tsp salt

To make instant cocoa mix - Combine ingredients and store until ready to use. Add 1/3 cup mix to 1 1/2 cups hot water.

To make chocolate milk - Mix together 11 cups of water, powdered milk, sugar, cocoa, creamer, vanilla and salt in a medium saucepan with a wire whisk. Heat on medium until warm, just before boiling. Don't let the mixture boil or you'll scald the milk. Pour into a gallon sized container and chill in the refrigerator. Mix before serving each time as the mixture will settle.

Yum!

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These brownies are taken from Swistle's love of all things brownie and her brilliant experimentation into Chocolate-MINT brownie land. I made these yesterday for dessert for our small group. These were actually my first ever attempt at from-scratch brownies. I personally have been more disappointed in other's homemade brownies than in most boxed brownie mixes, so I've never thought to try any of my own. It's sure easy to throw oil and eggs into the mix and pop it into the oven, and if they come out moist, yummy and just the right chocolatey, why mess with a good thing?? So when I saw Swistle's latest recipe, I thought, Yum! That'd be easy to throw on top of the next brownie mix I shake out of the box!
I honestly don't know why I ended up making the whole homemade brownie part yesterday, but it must have been divine intervention (and really, they were almost just as easy as a mix!), because they are So Much Better.
Too Much Better actually, because I've had three (small) helpings for breakfast already today. (Is it even possible these are better the next day? Because I'm thinking they just might be)

Proof that these are Awesome (with a capital A):
The last batch of brownies I made lasted over a week on our kitchen counter. This is after approximately 18 hours with this batch in our house....

The Brownies!!

1) Melt 1 1/2 sticks of butter and 5 squares (5 ounces) of unsweetened baking chocolate in a large saucepan.
2) As soon as it's thoroughly melted, remove from heat and add
-2 cups of sugar
-3 eggs( beat them ahead of time and add slowly while stirring so you don't cook the eggs)
-1 cup of flour
-1/2 tsp salt
-1 tsp peppermint extract (I actually didn't have any peppermint extract, but I had peppermint schnapps so I used that!)(it would probably be fine to omit it too?)

3) Stir just until combined and then pour into greased 9x13 pan and bake at 350* for 30 minutes.

4) Remove from oven and immediately pour mint chocolate chips or Andes baking chips over the top as evenly as you can. You can just let them sit and cool, but I personally popped them back in the oven for just a minute or two to be sure they got all nice and melty before they started cooling.

Cut them after five or ten minutes (it's really too early to cut them, -wear oven mitts!- but it's easier now than when the chocolate topping is hard and breaks up). Then let them fully cool. This seems to take a loooong time. I ended up putting mine in the fridge to cool and harden.

Important!! Bake these only if you're expecting people to help you eat them (i.e. before a party, potluck or other gathering)... a whole pan of these sitting in your own kitchen for any length of time would be extremely dangerous!!