Red Velvet Brownies

One of my nearest and dearest friends returned to work from her maternity leave on Sunday. Bittersweet for her, but I decided to make her something SUPER sweet to welcome her back.

I bring you .. red velvet brownies.

I have been wanting to post about my cooking and baking experiences over the past year or so - you know, when Pinterest took over my life. I spend hours in the kitchen in the evenings and have taught myself a lot of little tricks of the trade along the way. I'm no expert, but I do plan on posting about my fixin's, plus some tips about my version of the recipes. I am my mother's child, so therefore, it is impossible for me to ENTIRELY follow a recipe .. most times.

I was asked to share this recipe, so this shall be the beginning!

Red Velvet Brownies

1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature

1 1/2 cups granulated sugar

1 1/2 cups brown sugar

4 large eggs, at room temperature

1 oz red food coloring

4 tsp pure vanilla extract

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

6 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder

1/2 tsp salt

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter and flour a 9 X 13 clear glass baking pan.

Beat together the butter(s) and sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition, then stir in food coloring and vanilla, mix until the color is fully incorporated.

Mix flour, cocoa and salt in a separate bowl. Slowly add in the flour mixture being very careful not to over mix. Do not over mix. The batter will be very thick.

Remove the bowl from the mixer and stir up the batter with a rubber spatula once or twice just to ensure all of the flour has incorporated from the sides of the bowl and there isn’t anything stuck on the bottom of the bowl. You’ll want one uniformly colored (red) batter.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 30-40 minutes. 35 minutes for a thin crust on top and gooey underneath. Set aside to cool, cut into bars and serve.

I took it upon myself to add some cream cheese frosting on top. I should warn you that this takes one already very rich brownie to a new level of richness. But, they are so, so good!

Visit the site where the recipe originally came from!

(The photo is her photo. By the time those visiting the break room got their piece and Kristina scraped the remains from the pan that evening -- there wasn't quite anything left to photograh! I will use photos of my own results from now on.)