With Valentines Day happening this week, I thought I would share with you a spicy brownie recipe. Nothing says Happy Valentines Day like chocolate, especially when it is complimented with a hint of heat.

The pairing of chocolate and spice isn’t new. In fact, one of my favourite desserts that I have experienced here in Ottawa is Chili Chocolate Ice Cream from the Smoque Shack in the Byward Market. It is so confusing for your taste buds to have to cooling sensation of chocolate ice cream, but then the heat from the cayenne pepper hits you and your instinct is to eat more of that cooling ice cream, but that is where the heat is. It is such a delicious and vicious cycle 🙂

So, I wanted to try to make spicy brownies. As you know, I have only experimented with one scratch made brownie recipe. I went to the internet to find a spicy brownie recipe. Wow, there are so many to choose from, it was difficult to pick the right one. As I was scrolling through my Google hit list, I saw that Whole Foods had a recipe on their site. Everything from Whole Foods is amazing, so that is the recipe that I followed.

It was pretty easy, melt butter and unsweetened dark chocolate and add that in with the rest of your ingredients. I used a half ounce more of chocolate than the original recipe called for. Since the unsweetened chocolate comes in one ounce squares, I thought it was silly to only use two and a half squares. Besides, when has a bit more chocolate ever been a bad thing? 😉

I did use a bit more cayenne pepper than the ingredient list recommended. I went with half a teaspoon, however, even though there was a hint of heat in these brownies, the next time I will definitely ramp it up a bit and add a touch more. I was even thinking that adding red chili flakes might be a nice touch.

We served these up with a high quality vanilla bean ice cream. The cooling of the ice cream paired perfectly with the heat from the brownie. I think if (when) I make these again, I might make a spicy chocolate sauce to serve over the ice cream. Awesome!

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Courtesy of:
Whole Foods – Cinnamon Chile Chocolate Brownies

Ingredients:

• 3 ounces unsweetened chocolate, roughly chopped
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, plus more for the baking dish
• 2/3 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp fine sea salt
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease an 8×8 baking sheet with butter.
2. Put chocolate and butter in a medium saucepan over low heat. Cook, stirring frequently, until butter and almost all of the chocolate has melted, about 4 minutes.
3. Turn off the heat and let the mixture cool for a few minutes (any remaining chunks of chocolate should melt).
4. In a small bowl, whisk together flour, cayanne pepper, cinnamon, baking powder and salt. Pour the chocolate mixture into a medium bowl and stir in sugar, eggs and vanilla.  Add flour mixture and stir just until smooth.
5. Pour into the prepared pan and bake just until the top of the brownies begins to look dried and a toothpick inserted into the center of the brownies comes out with moist crumbs but no raw batter sticking to it, about 30 to 35 minutes.
6. Cool the brownies in the pan for 10 minutes and then remove the brownies from the pan and place on a rack to cool completely.