I’m not the kind of girl that will just sit and eat chocolate on its own. A bar of good quality dark chocolate has never been alluring to me, no matter how shiny, sexy, or smooth it may be. While I can definitely appreciate the qualities of a good chocolate, I much prefer to eat my chocolate in things. Cakes, brownies, cookies, milkshakes…you name it and I probably will want to eat it.

So when I am in need of some desperate chocolate therapy I usually will turn to a chocolate cake. Chocolate cake is the one thing that never lets me down, because even a bad chocolate cake is still a frigging chocolate cake! Made it from a box and used betty crocker icing? I will shovel it in my mouth. Messed up the recipe and forgot the sugar? Who cares, I’ll eat it. Didn’t even get as far as to bake the batter? Let’s not talk about that (hey! don’t look at me like that. I was in need and just could. not. wait. for the damn cake to bake, okay? The batter went into a milkshake. Which I also swirled a bunch of chocolate sauce into. Then proceeded to top it with whipped cream, sliced almonds and a cherry…but let’s not talk about it). 

Today, instead of a cake, I went for something much more instantly gratifying. Brownies! Because you don’t have to wait for a brownie to cool so you can fill it and frost it and decorate it. You can whip up a batch of brownies and be eating them in a bowl of ice cream in front of the tv watching soap operas in less than 20 minutes, if you’re super speedy like me (not including decorating time of course).

Almost-As-Good-As-Therapy Brownies

1 lb of soft, unsalted butter
4 cups of brown sugar
8 eggs
1 tsp of vanilla paste
2 cups of flour
2 cups of cocoa
1 tsp salt
Any optional add-ins you may want. Nuts, chocolate chunks, sprinkles, tears, whatever floats your boat.

No fuss no muss. Preheat your oven to 350F and grease and line a half sheetpan with parchment paper.

Cream the butter and sugar, add the eggs and vanilla and mix until combined. Add the flour, cocoa, and salt and mix on low speed until combined. Finish mixing it all together with spatula to make sure you get everything off the bottom of the bowl, this is the time to add any of your optional add-ins. Let’s try to leave the tears out, okay? They could be good though if you were going for a salted caramel brownie…

Spread the delicious brownie batter as evenly as you can in your pan, and throw that sucker in the oven for about 10 minutes, rotate the pan, and bake for about another 5 minutes. Keep an eye on them! It might take much less time. You will know the brownies are done when you gently poke the middle and your gut tells you that they aren’t done but TRUST ME, they are done, and will ever so slightly spring back.

Let these suckers cool on your counter, or be like me and throw them outside in the snow to speed that shit up (thank you, Canadian winter!).

Time to trim the edges!

Save the scraps or I will kill you. I’m not a brownie edge fan, but these ones are the best part of these.

Save them. Or ELSE! You can eat them yourself, crumble them up and use them for decoration, freeze them for a quick brownie pick-me-up, the potential is unlimited!

Little bitty baby brownies ready to be decorated. Okay..they’re not so itty bitty. I cut mine into approximately 2″x2″ squares.

I decorated these with white chocolate, dark chocolate, sprinkles, crispearls, brownie crumble, and raspberry milk crumb, all in various combinations of course.

Now you should probably find someone to share these with…Or you could be in trouble. Who wants brownies!?!?! See the hilariously ugly ones with hearts on them? I tried to make them valentines day worthy, and failed. I’m sure someone who is more artistic than I am could make some pretty ones.

Today’s post is brought to you by my kitchen helper and cuddler-extraordinaire, Sir Cecil Fuzzybutt. He likes to play with parchment paper scraps while I bake.