Happy Friday!

Hope you are having a great week, and even more if you are a soccer fan, because of the World Cup Russia 2018 starting this week.

Today’s recipe is Brownies! So I have some curious facts about chocolate that might be interesting to read:

• The U.S. produces more chocolate than any other country in the world but the Swiss consume the most, followed closely by the United Kingdom.
• Americans consume 2.8 billion pounds of chocolate each year, or over 11 pounds per person.
• Chocolate chips were introduced by Nestle in 1939, and they now produce about 250 million each day.
• Milk chocolate accounts for 80% of all the chocolate Americans consume on a daily basis.
•  Consumers spend more than $7 billion a year on chocolate.
•  The first recipe for brownies appeared in the 1896 edition of the Fannie Farmer Cookbook. 

Source: https://www.thechocolatestore.com/candyfacts.aspx

Ingredients

• 150 g plain chocolate or vegan chocolate
• 100 g butter or vegan butter
• 1 cup of sugar
• 1 cup of all-purpose Flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 3 eggs
• Pistachios (optional)
• White chocolate (optional)

Directions

1. Line a 6×8″ baking pan with parchment paper and pre-heat the oven to 350 F or 180 C.
2. In a heat bath, gently melt together the chocolate and butter (cut them in smaller pieces to make the process faster).
3. In another bowl mix in the sugar, flour and baking powder.
4. Beat the eggs into the dry ingredients.
5. Stir in the mix of melted chocolate and butter.
6. Pour into your prepared parchment lined baking pan and add some cut pistachios on top.
7. Bake for 21-25 minutes.
8. Cut into squares, circles or slices before serving warm or cold. I added some white chocolate flakes on top on some of them, but mostly for decoration (pistachios and white chocolate are completely optional).

Have a good weekend!

Remember to include fruits and vegetables in your daily diet, drink enough water and stay active.