Readable Eats: Diane Morlan's "Too Dead to Dance" and Coffee Brownies
Welcome back to another series where we pair binge-worthy books from Cozy Cat Press with recipes inspired by our favorite authors. This week, we're baking coffee brownies inspired by the espresso brownies Jennifer Penny's friend Megan makes in Too Dead To Dance (Jennifer Penny Mystery) by Diane Morlan. Diane lives in Illinois and works part-time at the Kishwaukee College Library. You can purchase Too Dead to Dance here. For the second installment of the Jennifer Penny series, click here.
The recipe for the brownies is included below.
Ingredients:
3/4 cup soymilk
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1-1/2 cups superfine sugar
3/4 cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup chopped dark chocolate chunks
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
2 tablespoons freshly brewed coffee (decaf is okay here)
1. Preheat oven to 350F. Grease an 8x8 baking pan.
2. In a medium-sized bowl, mix together the soymilk and apple cider vinegar and set aside to thicken for 5 minutes.
3. In a large bowl, whisk the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt until combined. It's okay if there are some small lumps of cocoa powder.
4. Add the sugar, oil, and vanilla to the bowl of soymilk and vinegar and stir well. Add this to the dry ingredients and fold to incorporate liquid with dry ingredients.
5. Add chopped chocolate, nuts, and coffee to the batter and mix to combine.
6. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake 30-35 minutes. If you like gooey brownies, remove from oven when a knife inserted into the brownies comes out with wet crumbs. If you like your brownies a bit firmer, leave brownies in the oven until a knife inserted into them comes out clean.
