Cafe Mocha Brownies Recipe

Z and I went to a housewarming party last night, and I adapted a recipe for brownies and made chocolate coffee-flavored brownies. Here's the recipe, originally from Betty Crocker's Cookbook: Bridal Edition.

Cafe Mocha Brownies

Prep: 25 minutes Bake: 45 minutes Cool: 2 hrs Makes: 16 brownies

2/3 cup butter or stick margarine (I always use butter)

15 Tablespoons cocoa powder and 5 Tablespoons oil (or 5 ounces baking chocolate, cut into pieces)

1 3/4 cup sugar

2 tsp vanilla

3 large eggs

1 cup flour (NOT self-rising)

5 packets instant espresso powder *only use the quick-dissolve kind that makes one cup of coffee when dissolved into hot water

1. Heat oven to 350. Cut a piece of parchment paper to fit into an 8x8 or 9x9 baking dish, so that two ends come up higher than the sides of the pan. You are making a "sling" so the brownies can be lifted out of the pan immediately after baking. Lightly spray the bottom of the baking dish with pan spray, and press the parchment into the pan.

2. Melt butter and chocolate in 1-quart saucepan over low heat, stirring constantly (if using solid squares), then cool 5 minutes. OR Melt butter and add cocoa powder and oil, mixing well.

3. Beat sugar, vanilla, eggs and espresso powder in medium bowl with electric mixer on high speed 5 minutes. Beat in chocolate mixture on low speed, scraping bowl occasionally.

4. Beat in flour just until blended, scraping sides of bowl well. Spread into pan.

5. Bake 40-45 minutes or just until brownies begin to pull away from sides of pan. Carefully lift brownies out of pan with parchment "sling" and cut into squares with a sharp knife. Let cool on wire rack, about 2 hours.

Enjoy!

Exciting news! And a rant...

I found out last week that I was accepted into the PhD program at Ohio State University!! My program is called Rethinking Early Childhood and Elementary Education (RECEE), and I am focusing on Science Education. I'm especially interested in integrating food and cooking skills into the curriculum to increase student interest and help children learn how to feed themselves healthfully and (hopefully) decrease the prevalence of obesity and other health problems.

I was able to meet my advisor, who is fantastic, and she is already introducing me to people and wants to get started writing a paper for publication! Very exciting that she is so knowledgeable and supportive!

Somewhat related to my exciting news, I unpacked my lunch today at work and one of the Research Assistants (undergraduate or newly graduated students who work on our project) commented that my lunch looked delicious. I thought that was funny, as I had been thinking that I put it together in a rush this morning and it wasn't as good as usual. I started talking to two of our RA's, and they mentioned that they didn't know how to grocery shop and plan meals and/or cook for the week on a tight budget. Well, since I practically have a PhD in that subject, I offered to give them some tips.

This got me thinking about the need for a real-life budgeting, grocery shopping, meal planning, cooking class for college students. I'm talking about hands-on skills where we plan what we want to eat and can afford, go to the store, then cook. How can we expect them to figure out how to do all of these "grown up" things if we don't teach them how to do it? I have 12 years of cooking classes through 4-H, a bachelor of science degree in agriculture, and decades of interest in cooking (and eating good food) to help me navigate this tricky subject. Yet we don't teach our young people cooking or homemaking skills any more (not academic enough-and who has the funding for that!) and then wonder why they eat at Taco Bell every night? Gee, I don't know why everyone in America is overweight, has diabetes and/or high blood pressure!

So, my plan is to talk to the RA's tomorrow and offer to teach them how to grocery shop and cook on a budget. Something informal, like once a month at my house. I'm also talking to my advisor about the possibility of putting together a General Studies class for college credit, and maybe conducting some research with college students. We have a Human Nutrition program through our Extension Education Office-maybe they have some extra money?