Brownie...Surprise!!!

The first time I ate this dessert, I was hooked. And when I"m hooked, I need the recipe.

My husband's family all have made this dessert and it's been in my repertoire as well for most of my life. Brownie Surprise has been part of many family celebrations and it was one of the Greatest Hits for a long time. Then we started getting fancy with pavlova and cheesecakes and sundry other hits. But in my opinion, Brownie Surprise hits all the comfort notes and deserves to be revisited from time to time.

I made it the other day as a celebration. My husband and I don't often eat dessert, one of the curses of getting older and slowing metabolism and all that boring stuff. But I chucked all of that caution out the door when my husband could celebrate putting up the first cut of hay. And, no rain on it, which is quite an accomplishment up here in bog and sandhill country. And, even better, a bumper crop of hay. Celebrations all around. And for me, celebrations require chocolate and some form of dairy. Whipped cream, ice cream, cheesecake. I'm not fussy.

So I hauled out this old chestnut and put it together, baked it (thanks to AC I don't worry about baking in the summer anymore) and we had it after supper with ice cream!

Now this recipe is very intriguing. Before I give you the actual recipe, I'll show you some pictures of the various steps so that you too, can be surprised!

First step - make the cake and press it out into a 9 x 9 baking pan. Now I'd love to be all Instagram worthy and so with a beautiful pan and flowers in the background, but this is my old faithful baking pan and it's got it's own history and stories so here it is in all it's well-used glory. And the recipe card, well I would say it's seen better days, but in my opinion the fact that it's so stained shows that it still has 'better days ahead'.

So you can see the poor recipe card.....

Beside that is the cake mixture in the pan, then on top of that goes the cocoa and brown sugar mixture, then the water on top of that, bake it and voila, the cake rises to the top and you end up with a lovely syrupy mixture on the bottom. Surprise! But the best part is this:

I usually serve dessert in small bowls but this was a celebration so out came the cereal bowls.

And finally, here is the recipe. I know it took some time to get here, but I'm a writer and I need to tell the story that goes with the recipe. I kept it short, honestly! Brownie Surprise - finally!

In a bowl mix up: (not that I want to tell you what to do, I mean you could use a plate if you prefer, but I would recommend a bowl.) Anyhow... Mix up the following and spread out in a 9x 9 pan:

1 Cup Flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

3/4 cup white sugar

1/4 cup cocoa powder

1/2 cup milk

1 tsp vanilla

2 Tblsp Vegetable oil

It's a bit sticky, so I use a fork and when I'm done, I lick the fork. This is an optional step and not required.

Then blend together:

3/4 cup brown sugar

1/3 cup cocoa

Mix well to get all the lumps out of the brown sugar then spread evenly over the cake mixture.

Then measure out

1 3/4 cup of water

and pour over top.

Bake in oven for 1/2 an hour, take it out and SURPRISE!

Enjoy warm with ice cream or whipping cream or just by itself. When it cools off, you can put it in the refrigerator, but before I do that, I'll often sneak a few more bites. It's just as good cold as warm. Again, this is an optional step.

I hope you enjoy this simple dessert!

In my Kittering Creek book, The Rancher's Heart, the heroine Anara Kittering has a bakery. Now the poor girl would not be able to make something like Brownie Surprise, but she has her own greatest hits that she inherited when she bought the bakery from her Aunt Gemma who inherited it from her aunt who got it from her father. So the bakery and the recipes have been in the family for a long time. And many of the pages were as stained and used as my beloved recipe card. If you want to read more about Anara and her bakery and, of course, her romance with Morgan Properzi who she once dated and once ditched .....

Get the Rancher's Romance by clicking on the cover of the book below. I hope you enjoy Anara and Morgan's story and, of course, the baking!