Brownie recipes are generally pretty exciting to me when thinking in terms of creativity. Like cookies, brownie recipes are so versatile. There are so many different things you can do with them. Sometimes the options are so vast, it’s easy to get carried away and try to throw in every ingredient in the kitchen into one single recipe.

     Today, I wanted to make a brand new brownie recipe from scratch. But I wanted to reel it in a little and not go too fancy, because I had an interesting new ingredient that I wanted to be the star of the show: black cocoa. 

     I had already used black cocoa once in a frosting recipe. That frosting came out so good that I knew this ingredient was worth more experimentation. 

     Black cocoa is, as expected, a darker color and flavor than either unsweetened or dutch process baking cocoa. That’s why it is recommended to use black cocoa in combination with one of the standard baking cocoas, not just by itself.

     I decided this was worth a shot with brownies. I wanted to make the deepest dark chocolate fudge brownie that I could. Doesn’t seem overly creative, but it certainly sounded delicious. 

     I used a 9×9 inch pan, so these brownies end up nice and thick, which is generally what I like in a brownie. And even before it was baked, you could definitely tell these brownies were going to be a deep chocolate flavor, just by how dark the batter was!

     These black cocoa brownies turned out very dark, fudgy and rich. Even though a small piece was enough to satiate, you’ll probably end up eating more than one small piece…. these were delicious. They are the deepest chocolate brownies I have ever had, and one of the yummiest brownies I’ve tasted yet. 

     If you like brownies, fudge and/or dark chocolate, you will love these.