Spicy Mexican Brownies

First off, I must start by saying that a batter defines a recipe....good batter generally means the final product will taste good (not necessarily look great, but oh well!)  And with this recipe, I literally licked the bowl.  I'm serious...I scraped the whole thing out 'til it was clean!!  Eeek!!  Only slightly embarrassing, but I'm over it  :)  And on a side note, my kitchen smells aaamazing!!!

This recipe is a take on Spicy Mexican Hot Chocolate.  I haven't had it in years, but I was sitting around the other night and it just came to me...I had to make brownies inspired by the hot chocolate!!  Who knows where these things come from...I used to get the spicy chocolate bars from Trader Joe's every now and then, but even that's been a while!

Spicy Mexican Brownies
Yields a 9x13 pan of brownies...cut them smaller and you get more to go around :)
Adapted from A Spicy Perspective

Ingredients

• 3 sticks unsalted butter
• 12 oz. semi-sweet baking chocolate
• 6 large eggs
• 1 1/2 Cups all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 Tablespoon instant coffee granules
• 3/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 3/4 Cups sugar
• 1 Tablespoon vanilla extract

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. In a medium sized microwave safe bowl, melt butter and chocolate (chocolate cut into even sized pieces).  Microwave on medium power level in 30-second intervals, stirring after each interval, for about 5-7 minutes.  Stop when chocolate is almost all melted (the rest should melt on its own), do not over heat.  You could use a double boiler instead of microwave.
3. In another medium sized bowl, whisk together flour, salt, coffee granules, cayenne, and cinnamon.  
4. After chocolate/butter mixture has cooled, proceed to this step:  In a large bowl, whisk eggs, sugar, and vanilla.  Pour in cooled melted chocolate mixture and stir to combine.
5. Stir in flour mixture in two batches, stirring until combined after each addition.
6. Grease a 9x13 inch baking dish.  Pour batter into dish and bake for 35-40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out mostly clean.

Note:  Next time, I plan on upping the amount of cayenne and cinnamon...it could use a little more kick for my tastes!  The recipe as is has just enough of the spices in it to make you wonder what's going on there...but I'd prefer a little more burn from the cayenne :)

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