Banana Walnut Brownies of Chocolate Deliciousness

I love cheese but sometimes what you really need is chocolate.  After a hard week with a fussy baby and being disappointed to miss out on a nice dinner out with friends because Orion was sick, I required chocolate.  I called Patrick to task him with picking up some chocolate deliciousness on his way home from work.  He needed more specifics and I was helpful enough to say “no ice cream, maybe something cake like or a brownie but nothing from Whole Foods as their sweets never satisfy me and nothing from Wegman’s, and not the standard chocolate cake from Santini’s”.  With instrusctions like that, it is no surprise he came home empty handed.

That night around 8 pm, I checked the cupboard to see if we had anything on had to create something yummy.  Cocoa powder-check, butter, we have that, brown sugar- yup, all of which I can transform into brownies.   I found an Alton Brown recipe, who I love, but he often makes things a bit complicated in his quest for food perfection.  His recipe had way to much sifting going on (how do you sift sticky brown sugar?) so I skipped it.

Here is my recipe for Banana Walnut Brownies adapted from Alton Brown’s Cocoa Brownies recipe By Charlotte McConnell adapted from Alton Brown

Ingredients:

4 large eggs

1 cup sugar

1 cup brown sugar

8 ounces (2 sticks) melted butter

11/4 cups cocoa

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/2 cup flour

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1 heaping teaspoon cinnamon 
1 cup of walnuts

1 ripe banana, mashed and mushed

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F.

Butter and flour an 8-inch square pan.

Beat the eggs then add brown sugar and granulated sugar.  

Mix in everything else and pour batter into pan.

Bake 45 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean or you can no longer wait.

I love that Alton Brown says “resist the temptation to cut into it until it's mostly cool”.  Obviously, he is not a woman, and I did not wait.  Yes, they fell apart a little but it was near 10pm and I had been waiting many hours for a chocolate fix and I knew they would be cool tomorrow.

These really hit the chocolate spot and were so easy that I really can’t understand why anyone would make brownies from a box.  Plus they were almost, kinda, sorts healthy with the one banana and all its potassium and the healthy walnuts who are full of good fats and omega-3!  I know this picture really does not do these brownies justice but I was busy eating them.  I made them Thursday night and this was the only bit left on Sunday morning.