Most places in my area—at least, the higher elevation places—get their fair share of snow in the winter. In my hometown of Victoria, winter usually means heavy rains, but once in a while, just to shake up the Locals’ smugness at driving with summer tires and preparing for the “Annual Spring Flower Count,” Mother Nature dumps a load of white stuff on the city.

Aside from visions of sleds, sleighs and snowballs, winter at my house means snuggling in with a pot of hot coffee, freshly baked cinnamon rolls or slices of lemon loaf. Delicious choices but after months of self-isolation and cookie tins emptied of festive Holiday cookies and mince tarts, I felt like rolling out the “big guns”—Dark Chocolate Fudgy Brownies–my weapon of mass cacao beans and calories. This is sinfully winter and massively destructive to New Year’s resolutions regarding diets, exercise and other good intentions.

I have a go-to recipe for my brownies, but in the excitement of actually making some, the recipe somehow got lost–buried in one of my many don’t-forget-where baking books. My other go-to source was a hunt on Google Search and what a treasure-trove that was!

The first one I found was “Land O Lakes Fudgy Dark Chocolate Brownies,” a truly rich and fudgy dark chocolate morsel that had my mouth watering just reading the recipe. This recipe used dark chocolate chips, dark chocolate chunks and instant dark coffee or expresso. The link is: https://www.landolakes.com/recipe/18243/fudgy-dark-chocolate-brownies/ To make it even more sinful, I broke up pieces of Rogers 72% Dark Chocolate bar on top of the baked brownie as it was cooling on the rack. After the chocolate bar had melted, gently spread and swirl with a knife. Completely cool before cutting and sharing. Because I added a chocolate bar topping, I reduced the amount of sugar in the recipe.

The fun of researching dark chocolate fudgy brownies isn’t just to bake-and-snack, but also to discover other variations. Marissa Stevens (https://pinchandswirl.com/fudgy-dark-chocolate-beet-brownies/ ) caught my eyes because of the veggie, beets, added to her recipe, “Fudgy Dark Chocolate Beet Brownies.” I tried this recipe a month after the Land O Lakes one. I found Marissa’s version a moist brownie; no taste of any beets and quite chocolatey. Again, I reduced the sugar in the recipe allowing for the natural sugars in the beets and also for the melted 72% dark chocolate on top. Half my tasters commented they liked the moistness of this brownie while the other half preferred a slightly drier brownie. Everyone like the topping.

The Best Fudgy Homemade Brownies From Scratch made me pause. http://sweetannas.com/2013/10/the-best-fudgy-homemade-brownies-from-scratch.html Everyone claims a “Best” or “Greatest” to make their recipe stand out from the crowd. A few weeks after the beet brownies, I tried this one because the ingredients were all in my cupboard and fridge. And like the other recipes I reduced the sugar–in this case, from 2 cups to 1 cup. I substituted Fry’s unsweetened cocoa powder for the Dutch-processed cocoa powder in the recipe. I also melted a 72% Rogers dark chocolate bar on top when it was pulled from the oven. Cool completely before cutting. This dark chocolate brownie had a fudgy texture—not as moist as the beet ones but definitely a dark chocolate fudgy brownie that appealed to all my tasters.

If healthy can be attributed to dark chocolate brownies, I’ll toss in my neighbour, Anna-Marie’s version of her “Fudgy Dark Chocolate Strawberry Brownies made with nonfat Greek yogurt, maple syrup and whole wheat flour. Anna Marie’s recipe came from a blog called Amy’s Healthy Baking found at https://amyshealthybaking.com/blog/2015/08/02/clean-fudgy-dark-chocolate-strawberry-brownies/ The recipe was meant to taste like 72% dark chocolate and be extra fudgy. The samples each taster enjoyed mainly agreed with that description–2 tasters wanted another sample to confirm but there was nothing left.

So now you have 4 delicious sources for Dark Chocolate Fudgy Brownies. I added my dark chocolate bar to melt on top of my baked brownies just to be extra decadent, but this is totally optional as each brownie does produce a nice top of its own.

Diving into the first day of February and almost midway through winter, here’s wishing all of you delicious brownies with your coffee. Stay well and Stay safe.