Double Chocolate Mint Brownie Bites!

Happy Spring!

We are outside prepping the gardens for our Spring plantings, and it feels so good to dig in the dirt and imagine all of the vegetables and herbs we’ll have soon have.  A family favorite to grow is fresh mint- luckily for us it is such a hearty plant we are never in short supply for our teas, salads and treats!

This inspired us for this week’s chocolate baking experiment, and the resulting double chocolate mint brownies were rich, refreshing and a hit with the whole family!  Please see the recipe below if you’d like to give it a try!

Double Chocolate Mint Brownie Bites Recipe

Ingredients:

Layer 1

• Extra butter for pan
• 4oz. 100% cacao chocolate* (or unsweetened chocolate)
• 2/3 cup butter
• 2 cups brown sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 tsp. mint extract
• 1 ¼ cups flour
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. salt

Layer 2

• 4 T milk
• 3 ½ cups powdered sugar
• ¾ butter (softened)
• 8-10 drops vegetable dye food coloring (if using traditional coloring, halve the amount)
• 1 tsp. mint extract

Layer 3

• 5 T butter
• 6oz. 70% dark chocolate** plus 3 ½ oz. powdered sugar OR 8 oz. chocolate chips

Directions:

Layer 1

Preheat oven to 350F and grease/butter bottom and sides of 9”x13”x2” pan.  Melt chocolate and 2/3 cup butter on stove in large sauce pan.  Remove from heat and add sugar, eggs and 1 tsp. mint extract- blend well.  In separate bowl sift together flour, baking powder and salt.  Add dry ingredients to mixture on saucepan and mix well.  Pour in greased pan, bake for 25-30 minutes, and cool before next step.

Layer 2

Combine powdered sugar, ¾ cup butter, milk, 1 tsp. mint extract and food coloring and beat until smooth.  Spread over first layer and chill in refrigerator.

Layer 3

Melt chocolate, powdered sugar and butter and stir to blend well.***  Pour and spread over previous layers.  Chill in refrigerator.  When ready, remove the pan and set on counter for about 20 minutes to allow top layer of chocolate to come to room temperature (this will make the cutting easier).  Cut treats into 1”- 1 ½” squares.  Eat immediately, store in refrigerator or freeze in airtight container to enjoy another time!

*Notes*

* For the 100% chocolate we used our 100% Cacao Bar (Bean Origin: Ucayali, Peru)

** For the 70% chocolate we used our 70% Ucayali Bar (Bean Origin: Ucayali, Peru)

*** For Layer 3, we chose to use our 70% chocolate bars and powdered sugar instead of pre-made chocolate chips.  The proportion of our 70% chocolate and additional sugar that we used was comparable to the composition of store-bought 45% cacao chocolate chips.  Melting our chocolate and sugar with the butter was a bit more challenging to combine- it takes time to combine the ingredients and you don’t want to overheat the mixture too quickly or else it will start separating into globules (it is still FINE to eat, it just doesn’t look good).  So, we had to slowly heat the chocolate and blend with the sugar and the butter.  While this is a more time-consuming process, I prefer it to using the store-bought chocolate chips with all of the additives for flavor and nutritional reasons!