Texas Brownies
This is really more of a chocolate sheetcake, but my family accepts it as brownies and I like it so much more than a pan of heavy, gooey box-mix brownies.
I was using this recipe long before I ever moved to Texas - living here just makes it a little more fun.
My usual complaint against brownie recipes is that they all seem to require baking chocolate, which I never have on hand. This recipe uses baking cocoa, which I almost always have.
The other thing I really like about this cake is that you pour the warm frosting onto the warm cake, resulting in a soft, moist cake with a thin layer of glaze on top. Yum… Yum…
Texas Brownies
makes 1 sheetcake / prep. time: 30 minutes / cook time: 20 minutes
Cake:
2 c. flour
2 c. sugar
1 stick butter
1/2 c. shortening
1 c. weak coffee or water
1/4 c. cocoa
1 t. vanilla
2 eggs, slightly beaten
1 t. baking soda
1/2 c. buttermilk or sour milk
Mix the flour and sugar together in a large bowl. Set aside. In a saucepan on the stove, melt the butter, shortening, coffee, and cocoa - bring to a boil. Add this to the flour/sugar mixture. Next add the eggs, buttermilk, vanilla, and baking soda. Pour into a greased jelly-roll pan and bake at 400 for 20 minutes.
(Who keeps buttermilk in the fridge? I don’t! Measure out the correct amount of milk, add a few dribbles of lemon juice or vinegar, and voila! A quick buttermilk substitute.)
Glaze:
6 T. butter
1 1/2 T. cocoa
3 T. milk
2 1/2 c. powdered sugar
1 t. vanilla
Bring the first three ingredients to a boil in a saucepan. Remove from heat. Stir in the sugar and vanilla. When the cake comes out of the oven, pour your warm glaze over the hot cake. Let it cool before you dig in.
Add comment February 24th, 2006