Alton Brown is my hero...

I surprised myself twice in the last few days. First, when I bought cocoa mix on Black Friday, since other than 2 exceptions (caramel apple spice and pumpkin spice latte, both from Starbucks) I don't like hot drinks. Second, when I found the perfect recipe to use said cocoa, since I knew I wouldn't drink it: brownies! I don't like brownies either.

Is it shark week?

The cocoa powder I bought is s'mores flavored - World Market had it and peppermint cocoa on sale (buy one, get one free) and both sounded good for some reason. Unfortunately they were out of the peppermint so I picked up 2 s'mores.

All the way home I thought about how I could use this cocoa powder in a baked good:  something neutral that would taste good with the added s'mores flavor, but something that needed cocoa powder. That seemed like a tall order when I Googled 'recipes using cocoa,' which is like Googling 'bugs' and expecting useable results.

Speaking of bugs, I'm OD'ing on nostalgia - you can't just walk into a room and say BUGS:

Most of the recipes were cakes, and I'm definitely not a chocolate cake fan so I kept looking. Then my eyes stumbled upon this Alton Brown cocoa brownie recipe - it has no other major flavor that would compete with the s'mores and only made an 8x8 pan of brownies rather than a huge cake that we don't need sitting around the house - you know?

Brownies it is.

Tonight, in a true fit of procrastination (I should be reading a book about feminism) I decided to make my s'mores cocoa brownies. Here's the recipe:

• 4 large eggs
• 1 cup sugar, sifted
• 1 cup brown sugar, sifted
• 8 ounces melted butter
• 11/4 cups cocoa, sifted
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup flour, sifted
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

Directions, from the Food Network website:

• Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F. Butter and flour an 8-inch square pan.
• In a mixer fitted with a whisk attachment, beat the eggs at medium speed until fluffy and light yellow. Add both sugars. Add remaining ingredients, and mix to combine.

• Pour the batter into a greased and floured 8-inch square pan and bake for 45 minutes.

• Check for doneness with the tried-and-true toothpick method: a toothpick inserted into the center of the pan should come out clean - it took mine about 75 minutes to be thoroughly solid.
• When it's done, remove to a rack to cool. Resist the temptation to cut into it until it's mostly cool.

Here they are all cooled off (actually chilled for a couple days):

Still not a brownie fan, but these did satisfy a craving ;)