Adventures in Cooking: Brownies Mexicanos

Normally brownies wouldn't be something that I'd consider to qualify as an 'adventure in cooking,' but when perusing some cooking forums someone suggested something that never crossed my mind; using Mexican chocolate for brownies. I had been introduced to Mexican chocolate at university but all we ever used it for was for hot chocolate (which, by the way, is awesome and you should totally make it; heat some milk in a saucepan and mix the chopped chocolate in and stir until it's done. Amazingly delicious on colder evenings)

Anyhow, this got me searching for recipes and I decided to follow this one. I had most of the ingredients lying around, except for the unsweetened chocolate, so after picking that and a new beer up I was ready to go!


Here are the culprits. As with last time, the beer is just something to tide me over while food cooks. The only unusual thing is the Mexican chocolate; I used Ibarra, which I've never had any trouble finding in west coast grocery stores.


The first step is melting the chocolates and butter; the website I linked doesn't suggest doing it, but roommates in university ingrained the notion that doing otherwise is a mortal sin; I melted the ingredients in a makeshift double boiler. It's probably fine to do it in the saucepan alone, but superstition can be fun sometimes.



Anyhow dropped the chocolate and butter in the double boiler and stirred until melted. It doesn't take too long and is pretty straight-forward. When it's done, I pulled out the bowl from the double boiler and poured the remaining ingredients in and stirred until mixed well.



Mixing things isn't interesting at all; just stir.


This doesn't take long; so it's time to pour the mixture in a glass pan and shove in the oven.

This takes around half an hour to bake, leaving me with some time on my hands. There are two good things that I think come out of baking; it often has good opportunities to clean my kitchen and when I'm done with that I might as well crack open a beer.

Well, that and lick the stirring spoon once the rest of the batter is in the oven. This is the best tasting thing ever.


And in what will likely be a trend, I drink while cooking; this session's beer is Captain Sig's Northwestern Ale by Rogue. I love Rogue's stuff and the premise of a Deadliest-catch beer was amusing enough to buy it.


And eventually after the kitchen is cleaner than when I started and the beer is partially consumed, the brownies are done cooking. It's time to pull them out and let them cool down. After letting them cool for a bit I tried one and it was good; I brought the rest into work the following day.

All in all, I was fairly satisfied with these; I don't think I can bear to make regular brownies again. I simply love the cinnamon-y taste of Mexican chocolate too much.