Dark Chocolate Coconut Brownies

So clearly that whole diet thing didn’t work out for me.

Eh, it’s OK. Life’s too short. Eat dessert!

I rarely take store-bought shortcuts, but I am usually pretty partial to boxed brownie mix. I find that homemade brownies can be kind of cakey and not as dense and gooey as the boxed variety. When dealing with chocolate, it’s better to be safe than sorry. Boxed brownie mix comes out perfect. Every. Single. Time.

Well this week, my world was turned upside down. I may never buy another box of brownie mix again.

I needed a very last minute snack to bring to a get together, so I was limited to ingredients I already had at home. Since I’ve been emptying out the fridge in preparation for vacation, that really didn’t leave too many options. I decided to attempt some homemade brownies, without very high expectations.

Uhmmmm. WOW. It is definitely 100% possible to make dark, fudgy, moist, dense brownies. From scratch. It’s not hard either. My secret ingredient that really put these over the edge? Hershey’s Special Dark cocoa powder.

I’m sure I’m in the minority when I say that Special Dark is my favorite one in a bag of Assorted Miniatures. You crazy people can take your Krackles. I’ll stick with the SD’s. So it comes as no surprise that when I saw a box of Special Dark cocoa powder sitting next to the regular at the supermarket, I swiped it up without a second thought.

In certain recipes, it doesn’t make a huge difference. In brownies? It makes them magical. Just magical.

Alrighty, let me wipe the drool from keyboard and move on.

(adapted from Hershey’s)

1 stick butter, melted
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup Special Dark cocoa powder
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup shredded sweetened coconut, divided

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a medium bowl, combine butter, sugar, vanilla and eggs. In another bowl, sift together flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, and stir until well mixed. Fold in 3/4 cup of the coconut. Spread in a nonstick sprayed 8-inch square baking dish.

Sprinkle remaining coconut on top. Bake 25 to 30 minutes until the edges of the brownies begin to pull away from the pan. Cool completely before cutting.

Lucky for me, I had a lot of help eating these, and only ended up having one myself. But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t already thinking about different mix-ins to add to the fudgy base. Shhhhh.

Enjoy!