Mocha Brownies
As I was trying to figure out what to make this week, I realized I’ve never made brownies with frosting. I guess that’s not completely true. I’ve made brownies with peanut butter frosting and chocolate ganache and I’ve also made Texas sheet cake. But never just brownies with just some sort of frosting. I decided to do that this week. Hubby requested mocha brownies, so I upped the amount of coffee in the brownie batter and made some coffee flavored frosting.
I used my go-to brownie recipe. It never fails me. It already calls for instant coffee, so I just bumped it up to 1 Tbsp. I used 1 Tbsp in the frosting as well. These brownies had a great jolt from the caffeine and everyone seemed to enjoy them. I couldn’t wait to try these, so I frosted and cut them while they weren’t completely cool. I love that these brownies have chocolate chips in them. So when you eat them still warm, the chocolate chips are all gooey and delicious!
Check out my entire week of bars and brownies here.
Mocha Brownies
Yield: ~36
Ingredients:
For the Brownies
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
2 1/4 cups sugar
4 large eggs
1 1/4 cups cocoa
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 Tbsp espresso powder, optional
1 Tbsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups chocolate chips
For the Frosting
1/2 cup butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups powdered sugar
1 1/2 Tbsp milk
1 Tbsp instant coffee
Directions:
For the Brownies
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly grease a 9" x 13" pan
In a saucepan set over low heat, melt the butter, then add the sugar and stir to combine. Return the mixture to the heat briefly, just until it's hot, but not bubbling; it'll become shiny looking as you stir it. Heating this mixture a second time will dissolve more of the sugar, which will yield a shiny top crust on your brownies.
Transfer the sugar mixture to a medium-sized mixing bowl, if you've heated it in a saucepan. Stir in the cocoa, salt, baking powder, espresso powder, and vanilla.
Whisk in the eggs, stirring until smooth.
Add the flour and chips, again stirring until smooth.
Spoon the batter into a lightly greased 9" x 13" pan.
Bake the brownies for about 30 minutes, until a cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean, or with just a few moist crumbs clinging to it. The brownies should feel set on the edges, and the center should look very moist, but not uncooked.
Remove them from the oven and cool completely on a rack.
For the Frosting
In a bowl cream butter and vanilla. Add powdered sugar and beat on medium speed. Dissolve instant coffee in milk and add to the mixture. Beat until lightly and fluffy.
Spread the frosting over the cooled brownies.
Brownies adapted from King Arthur
Frosting Recipe from Blog Chef
I am Jen the Beantown Baker. Engineer by day and baking maven by night. Hubby serves as my #1 fan and official taste tester. We got hitched back in 2006. Barefoot. In the sand. With the waves crashing behind us. It was one of the best decisions we’ve ever made. 
Jen, I totally love your blog. You always ahve the BEST treats! I LOVE the picture with all the cookies resting on the m&ms. GREAT idea! 🙂
Looks beautiful as always!
perfect use of pink! So interesting about how the cookies reacted to the way you rolled them! Thanks for the heads up!
Your cookies look great and that’s a good tip about getting them to look their best too. My kids and all their friends love these cookies. I’ve made them a few times since I first posted them and they never last long.
thanks for the link!
~ Michelle
Those are beautiful and perfect for such a great cause
What an adorable picture! Also helps that they are for a great cause! 🙂
M&Ms are my favorite treat and I love that during this month everything is PINK! The cookies look fantastic.
I am bummed I missed your Power of Pink contest as I was utilizing October to raise awareness around breast cancer too! I made some cookies and have a post on my site: http://katskitchenplace.blogspot.com/2009/10/october-is-breast-cancer-awareness.html
I like the chocolate cookie base of your cookies! Thank you for sharing. Looking forward to checking back and seeing all what people make towards your challenge 🙂
A chocolate cookie topped with chocolate candies? What could be better? Perhaps a tall, ice cold glass of milk to go with them! They look divine. I’m wondering if you might skip the rolling and flattening by creating a wide log of dough (without M&Ms), slicing to the thickness desired, then pressing candies on top? Seems like the dough might be fairly easy to shape into a log. A quick pop into the fridge before slicing would help firm it up. Just a thought! I can’t wait to try them.
Best,
Casey
http://www.tastestopping.wordpress.com
P.S. Not sure if I’ve invited you before, but I’d love to publish any of your photos that FoodGawker and TasteSpotting decline! Thanks. 😀
I love the dark chocolate and pink M&M contrast. What fantastic cookies:)
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I just made your recipe for these cookies yesterday and took them to church. The kids went nuts and they’ve never turned out as pretty as they did this time. Thanks for the helpful tips because my m&m cookies have never turned out prettier! 9 minutes was also perfect timing as well.
Both pretty and I’m sure delicious! I love how you showed the comparison between batches to give better suggestions for prettier cookies. The final batch are definitely the prettiest of the bunch. I love that the pink pops w/the chocolate cookie.