Lunch Lady Brownies

When I have to make snacks for small group it's hard not to over think the menu. Last year, these mental exercises seemed particularly ludicrous because the folks in that group would've eaten just about anything...and did. It was definitely gratifying to serve up all kinds of foods and get immediate positive reactions. One of our members died unexpectedly last fall. I miss many things about him - including the way he'd come into my house talking about how he couldn't wait to eat whatever I'd cooked up. How could you not love a guy like that?

This year is harder. People either don't eat at all because of dietary constraints or they're Martin type selective about what they consider a decent snack. (OK, maybe it's just Jim and Martin that are choosy but since our group is smaller this year, those two plus the non-eater do constitute a fair percentage of folks who will be partaking of whatever is being offered to snack on.) For every exotic dessert or savory recipe to drool over, I find myself coming back to the old standards when I'm cooking for this crowd. Old standards such as these lunch lady brownies. The story has it that some cafeteria worker at a junior high school in Idaho has been making this recipe for decades. If food is good enough to stay on a school lunch menu for 50 years, you have to figure it'll be good enough for my small group.

Thinking about all those kids in Idaho eating up the Cafeteria Lady's brownies for fifty years made me recall my own school lunch experiences. I had the typical standing in the lunch line waiting for my plasticky tray to be filled with bland school food fare. None of it memorable. By high school, I was packing my own lunches though I do recall often standing in a long line to get the very much sought after warm cherry turnovers with a sugary icing criss-crossed over the top. In my jaded memory, I doubt those pastries were homemade every morning, but maybe there IS an Arizona counterpart to the Idaho Cafeteria Lady and maybe she's still making up batches of those turnovers fifty years later? I'll start googling Lunch Lady Turnovers now.

Lunch Lady Brownies
 Recipe courtesy of: http://www.saltboxhousecreations.com/2008/12/have-brownie.html

Ingredients:
1 cup of butter (I use unsalted)
1/2 cup of unsweetened cocoa
2 cups of all purpose flour
2 cups of sugar
4 eggs
4 teaspoons of vanilla
1 cup of chopped nuts (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Melt the Butter  and put into a mixing bowl.  Add cocoa and mix together until smooth. Add flour and sugar. Beat together and then add eggs, vanilla, and nuts. Mix until combined. Do not over stir!

Pour into greased, floured  9x13 baking pan. (The batter will NOT be runny like your average cake mix.)

Bake 20-25 minutes @350 F or until toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Let the brownies cool for about 10 minutes.  Frost while they are warm (not hot).
The frosting it what makes these brownies so good because they are not very sweet on their own. The warm frosting sinks into the brownies just enough to marry that dense cake with sugary sweet icing. You know how I always talk about the picky eaters in my life? Well, here's a confession: I can be pretty choosy when it comes to icings, preferring sweet over buttery/lardy type spreads. I used regular milk when I made the icing for these brownies and thought it tasted great. Next time, I'll definitely try the evaporated canned milk. Because there will be a next time.


The Chocolate Icing Recipe:
While the brownies are baking mix together:
1/4 cup of softened butter
1/4 cup of evaporated canned milk (regular milk is fine)
1/4 cup of unsweetened cocoa
3 cups of powdered sugar
Dash of salt

Mix all together and frost as desired.