I really felt like baking yesterday and my heart was feeling chocolate. So a natural inclination was brownies. But as I was searching around, I found some recipes for spicy chocolate brownies. And so my Mayan Chocolate Brownies were born. Despite taking several hours due to a prolonged propane tank situation, they were baked and turned out delicious. The recipe I used was based largely on one in the Whole Foods iPad app, but I modified it a little bit. I added more “spicy” because I wanted the flavor to really push through the sweet brownie, and I loved that this recipe kept them from being too sweet. It really is not that spicy, but if you are nervous you could use less cayenne. I think next time I might try it with some of the local chili powder too.

What You Need:

This is the good stuff

2.5 ounces unsweetened chocolate (the Grenadian Chocolate company 100% cocoa bar worked marvelously!)
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1/4 + 1/8 tsp. cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp. baking powder
2/3 cup flour
1/4 tsp. fine sea salt
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract

Preheat your oven to 350 and prepare an 8 inch pan by lining it with aluminum foil leaving enough to hang over two of the edges. This was different, but it made getting the brownies out super easy and no washing the pan! Butter the foil.

Melt the chocolate (chopped into pieces) and butter in a small saucepan on low until almost all of the chocolate pieces are melted. Remove from heat, stir until rest of chocolate melts, and allow to cool.

Whisk together flour, spices, baking powder, and salt. Pour chocolate mixture into a medium bowl and stir in sugar and eggs and vanilla. Add flour mixture and stir just until smooth. Pour into a prepared pan and bake until top is dry and a tester comes out without any raw dough, about 25-30 minutes. My oven is hot and I baked them about 25 minutes – I really wanted to preserve the moist centers and I think they came out perfect.

Allow to cool then remove from pan via the foil and then you can slice them up and a cutting board. I made the brownies into sundaes with some vanilla ice cream for a delicious summer treat!

Oh, and this also marks the first post where I am trying to stop being lazy and use our nice camera. Now naturally I tried to take most of these pictures at night and we still don’t have the best kitchen lighting, but I have hopes that they might improve. We will see.

Enjoy!