Uber-chocolate Uber Brownies

Last school year, I'd been promising my 2nd period seniors I'd make them brownies for ages (they got the highest cumulative score on a benchmark exam).  I never set a deadline though, so of course never found the time.  When I finally committed to making them (THIS WEEK, kids, I swear!), I wanted to put in a little extra effort, make the brownies memorable, since they were so long in coming to the class.

First I pulled out my trusty Stater Bros store brand brownie mix.  For whatever reason, I like its texture better than most name brands (Ghirardelli also makes a great mix, but you pay more for the same Stater Bros flavor).  I was in a hurry and put three boxes of mix into the mixer at once, which turned out to be a bit much--two works best. After adding the called-for ingredients, I started thinking of ways to special it up. I powdered some instant decaf coffee crystals in my coffee grinder, and added that (coffee always makes chocolate taste more intense, and unless you add a bunch, all you taste is just better chocolate.  It's like adding a splash of balsamic vinegar to a bowlful of fresh strawberries--they become the best strawberries ever).  Then I tossed in a bunch of shots of Tabasco,  which makes ANYTHING taste better.  Then I remembered a dark chocolate/ginger bar I ate recently, and tossed some powdered ginger into the batter, which by then was so good I couldn't stop licking the spatula.

The final product tasted uber chocolatey.  The coffee, ginger, and Tabasco only served to pump up the chocolate flavor.  I ended up adding enough coffee that if you really paid attention to your taste buds you might have detected it in the background, but the ginger and Tabasco remained secret weapons of flavor.  If these brownies had not been headed for picky teenagers, I would have added chopped walnuts and maybe even some dried cranberries, or sprinkled chocolate chips across the surface about halfway through baking. 

Toward the end of the school year I made brownies again and tried them out on my first period sophomores (sometimes testing experiments on less-than-adventurous palates can be a good idea, because if even they like it, you know you have a winner).   Since I love the way chili makes other flavors pop in your mouth (even when you can't taste the chili) this time I decided to just commit to it, adding chili powder to the batter rather than just Tabasco, and in one batch even pushing it to the point where you could definitely taste the chili. Most of my students are Mexican-American and familiar with the combination.  I wanted to know if they thought it would work in this situation.  Some of them really got it, and others thought it was just too untraditional for a brownie.  I sort of agreed with them, but it was still a fun experiment.  Next time I think I'm going to grind up a little jalapeno or serrano chili, just a small bit for the whole batter.  I think you'd get the kick without the chili flavor--just a unidentifiable essence of extra-uber-chocolatiness.  Oh, and by the way, the brownie batches with undetectable amounts of chili powder did get strong reviews.  However, I didn't think they were quite as good as the earlier ones with the ginger.  That's an ingredient I'll always add to brownies from now on.

Anyway, I hope this inspires you to throw in some kicky support ingredients next time you make brownies, and then try to keep yourself from sampling "just one little bit more" before you wrap them up to take to work or school the next day.