Mennonite Monday - Chocolate Brownies

Mennonite Monday started because I wanted to make recipes from the Bethesda Mennonite Church Cookbooks (both the yellow and the white cookbook for those of you who own them). I also wanted to take pictures of each recipe that I made, so I would know for future reference what the recipe should look like. I am by no means a great cook, but I think it will be fun to try new and different recipes each week. Not all of these recipes are for ethnic Mennonite food, but the women from Henderson know how to cook, so I can safely say that these recipes will be good. Check back each Monday for a new recipe and feel free to leave a comment if you have a favorite recipe from these cookbooks, or if you have some tips on what I should make and how I should make it.

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This week I made Chocolate Brownies (pg 17Y) from scratch.  It often amazes me how easy it is to make food from scratch.  You need to have a few more ingredients on hand to make recipes, like these brownies, from scratch, but the end product is so much better.  

Chocolate Brownies

4 squares chocolate

1/3 cup margarine

1/3 cup shortening

 4 eggs

2 cups sugar

1 1/3 cup sifted flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/3 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon vanilla

Melt chocolate with shortening and margarine.  Beat eggs well, add sugar gradually and add the melted chocolate mixture.  Sift flour and add baking powder and salt and vanilla to mixture.  Sprinkle nuts on top if desired.  Bake at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes. 

I used butter flavored Crisco because that is what I had on hand and it seemed to work well. 

Mixing the egg and sugar together.

Adding the egg mixture to the chocolate mixture.

Adding the flour mixture.

Mixing it all together.

The recipe did not say what type of pan to use, so I used a 9 x 13 pan, which worked well.  I would suggest spraying the pan, so the brownies don't stick.

I put some semi sweet chocolate chips on the brownies instead of nuts to add a little more chocolate flavor.

 NEXT WEEK: Sweet Potato Balls and Chicken -N- Biscuits