Shout Out to My Mom, Part II

Comfort food. Usually conjures up images of mashed potatoes, shepherd's pie, stroganoff... ya know. But I've found that the brownies my mom makes (and has made for years) have that same comforting appeal. So much so, that I've made them twice this month and have only managed to snap a couple of pictures of them in various states of half-eaten-ness.

Homemade Brownies with Frosting. These will kick your chocolate sweet tooth in the butt. If a sweet tooth has a butt. I'm furrowing my brow. This metaphor is all wrong.

But the brownies are so right.

You'll notice that I've cut half a brownie there, like I'm not going to eat the other half in 5 minutes anyway...

Recipe Adapted from Mom

Brownies!

Here's what you need:

* 2 sticks of unsalted butter

* 1/2 C cocoa

* 2 C sugar

* 1T vanilla

* 4 eggs

* 1 1/2 C flour

* 1/2 t salt

Here's what you do:

* Melt the butter in a sauce pan over medium heat. Whisk in the cocoa until smooth.

* Pour into a bowl. Add the sugar and the vanilla. Mix on medium speed until everything is incorporated.

* Add eggs, one at a time, to the batter.

* Add flour and salt. Mix until it's all mixed.

* Pour into a greased 9x13 pan, and bake at 350 for 25 minutes.

* Once the brownies have cooled, spread a generous amount of frosting over the top.

Frosting

Here's what you need:

* 1 stick of butter at room temperature

* 5 T whipping cream

* 1 t vanilla

* 3 C powdered sugar

* 1/3 C cocoa

Here's what you do:

* cream the butter on high speed. I usually do this with a kitchenaid hand mixer on setting 7.

* add the cream and vanilla, mix

* add half the powdered sugar, mix, then repeat (do half at a time so the powdered sugar doesn't fly up in my face when I turn the mixer on)

* add the cocoa

*adjust consistency to your liking

Note: These are rough estimates. If the frosting is too thick, add one tablespoon of milk at a time until you have the desired consistency. If the frosting is too runny for your liking, add 1/2 C of powdered sugar until you have what you want.