Recipe: Buttermilk Brownies

I wanted to make buttermilk biscuits last week, and I remembered I have a whole blog post of buttermilk recipes. I used a recipe there for the biscuits, but then I had lots of buttermilk left over. So I thought I's try a new recipe, this time making brownies!

I found this recipe on the Shugary Sweets blog and thought I'd give it a go:

Ingredients

·        ½ cup unsalted butter

·        ¼ cup dark chocolate unsweetened cocoa powder

·        ½ cup vegetable oil

·        2 cups granulated sugar

·        2 large eggs

·        ¼ cup buttermilk

·        ½ teaspoon vanilla extract

·        2 cups all-purpose flour

·        1 teaspoon baking soda

·        ½ teaspoon kosher salt

·        1 cup semi-sweet chocolate morsels

Directions

1.      Preheat oven to 400 °F. Line a 13×9-inch baking dish with parchment paper. Set aside.

2.      For the brownies, in a small saucepan over medium high heat, combine butter, cocoa powder and oil. Bring to a boil and remove from heat.

3.      In a large mixing bowl, combine granulated sugar, eggs, buttermilk and vanilla. Slowly whisk in the butter mixture. Add in flour, baking soda and salt, and stir just until combined. Fold in chocolate chips.

4.      Pour into prepared baking dish and bake for 20 minutes. Remove from oven and cool.

5.      While brownies are cooling, begin frosting. In a small saucepan, combine butter, buttermilk and cocoa powder. Whisk over medium heat until mixture begins to boil. Remove.

6.      In a mixing bowl, combine powdered sugar with butter mixtures. Beat for several minutes until smooth. Pour over brownies (they don’t need to be completely cooled. Sprinkle immediately with chocolate chips.

7.      Refrigerate for two hours, until set. Cut and enjoy. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

I rarely make brownies from scratch, because the boxed ones are so good! So I had never mixed the cocoa powder, butter, and oil like this before. I used a blood orange flavored olive oil instead of vegetable oil for added flavor (I bought it at an olive oil/balsamic store in St Michaels, MD), and since I didn't have regular chocolate chips, I used white chocolate chips instead. The blog said the brownies taste best chilled, so I was very patient in trying these!

I did like these, although I'll admit the orange flavor overpowered everything, so if I did this again, I would add more cocoa powder. I'm not sure these are worth making if the aim is to use up buttermilk, seeing as the recipe only calls for a quarter cup of it. Still easiest to just buy a boxed brownie mix and use your special olive oil in that! You can always doctor up a mix; there are so many books that can help with that!

I thought the recipe instructions were a little out of order; the dry ingredients should have been mixed before the wet ingredients, but no biggie. And I didn't bother making icing: brownies taste good just as they are without frosting! And who needs the added calories anyway? These are worth a try, even if they are bald on top! And maybe you can try making them with my changes to the recipe :)