Pumpkin and chocolate are meant to go together. As strange as they might seem as a combination at first joined together in brownie form they make a great union. I actually got this recipe from Martha Stewart’s website here. As with pretty much everything I cook I have made some modifications which I have noted.
The brownies begin with sugar, eggs and vanilla, which is a change from the standard “cream eggs and butter together” instructions that start off most recipes. I have to confess that I was wondering how moist this was going to be given that there is not much fat in the base.
After a few minutes of beating the eggs and sugar they were pale and fluffy. I kept on beating them for a few minutes after I had taken this picture just to be sure.
Instead of using just white flour I used half white, half whole wheat and added in some flax seed. I like the texture that this mixture gives and tend to use it a lot. Plus it makes things a shade healthier, even if they are brownies. I didn’t add cayenne pepper like the recipe calls for but I did add cinnamon and nutmeg.
In the original recipe the plain batter is split in two and one half is mixed in with melted chocolate and the other half is mixed with pumpkin. I wanted a more pronounced pumpkin taste so I decided to just dollop pumpkin on top of the brownies. Instead of adding all the sugar to the batter I reserved some and mixed it into the pumpkin puree along with the oil and more cinnamon and nutmeg.
I didn’t have any baking chocolate so I just ended up using chocolate chips. I don’t really bother melting chocolate over a double boiler since doing it in the microwave is so much easier. You just melt it at 20 second intervals and stir it when you take it out.
I wanted a swirly effect so when I added the melted chocolate to the batter I mixed it very briefly, too long actually, I should have mixed it less. It wasn’t as swirly as I wanted it, oh well, next time.
I poured the brownie batter in a pan and put dollops of the pumpkin mixture on top.
With a knife I carefully swirled the pumpkin into the batter before I put it into the oven.
Ta-da! The finished baked product. My kitchen smelled really good at this point. I liked the look of the swirly batter with the pumpkin interspersed throughout.
These were really good and very moist because of the pumpkin. Because of the way the ingredients were mixed together each mouthful was different, parts of the brownie were more chocolaty and other parts more pumpkiney (yes, I know that is not a real word). The nutmeg and chocolate really brought out the taste of both the chocolate and the pumpkin. Whenever I buy pumpkin puree it comes in a huge can and I always end up making multiple recipes. This was a really great recipe and I will keep it in mind next time I have a craving for a pumpkin dessert.
