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50 Desserts to Serve on Thanksgiving

Have you started planning the menu for your Thanksgiving dinner? Are you looking for some dynamite dessert recipes that will satisfy your guests' collective sweet tooth? Be sure to check out this amazing round-up of 50 Thanksgiving dessert recipes on Taste As You Go! This post was updated with new links and photos in November 2021. Ahhhh...  November.  I have been waiting for you (and all that you bring) for months . Specifically, I have been counting down to that glorious day spent with family and loved ones around a long table packed to the gills with platters and bowls of comfort food and happy memories. Of course, I'm talking about Thanksgiving. This year, we're spending the holiday with my family in Connecticut and I. Cannot. Wait. You better believe I'm going to use my pregnancy as an excuse to eat three full plates of food plus  five slices of whatever we've got going on at the dessert end of the meal! (Because I'm eating for two, right??) In

Fudgy Cocoa Brownies

Fudgy Cocoa Brownies Recipe Card | Taste As You Go

This post originally appeared on Taste As You Go in August 2008. It has been updated in December 2021 to include a new lead photo and recipe card. Photos are still to come.

This post contains affiliate product links. Clicking on these links may result in my being paid a small commission based on product sales. Regardless of commission, all opinions expressed in this post are my own. For more information, please review our site policies.

I realize that I am probably committing a major food blog faux pas by writing a post containing a recipe and not including a step-by-step explanation of the process or any photos of the finished product.

Considering I've placed myself on a rather strict budget until I climb out of the financial hole known as "moving to New York," I must delay purchasing a new digital camera. (My very old refurbished HP digital camera did not survive the move.)

I hope you don't hold it against me. Perhaps, one day, I'll have enough time to shoot the photos and included them here.

After a long day at work yesterday, which included inventorying and folding 575 t-shirts and helping a coworker fix the flushing mechanism on one of the office toilets, I needed chocolate. Remembering there was a recipe for brownies on the container of SACO Premium Cocoa I had in the cabinet, I decided to go for it. Especially since I had a bottle of Ina-Garten-recommended "good vanilla" in the cabinet right next to the cocoa.

I cannot begin to tell you how decadent these brownies were! 

It took a tremendous amount of restraint for me to only eat two before wrapping the rest of the pan up for the night. Normally, I'm not a huge fan of nuts or other mix-ins in my brownies, but I'm glad I added the almonds. The crunchy nuts provided a nice contrasting texture to the chewy fudginess to the brownies and having them in there helped to cut the richness. 

If I had it in the freezer, I would definitely top one of these brownies off with a generous scoop of my Vanilla Bean Ice Cream.

Enjoy!


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Comments

David said…
3 words: cell phone camera
Eureka! I never considered my cell phone camera as a viable option. My phone is old (almost 2 years) and doesn't take the highest quality photos. But I'll try it out when I get home from work.

A bush league photo taken with my cell phone is better than nothing... right?

Thanks for the suggestion! :)
David -- Trying to produce any photo of reasonable quality with my cell phone camera resulted in a big, fat fail. Even when new, my phone wasn't capable of taking great pictures, so the quest for another option continues until I can save up enough money for the digital camera I want.
Matt Casey said…
Sounds delicious.. are you able to discern the better vanilla in the output? I've never tried that before, though I realize it may be impossible to tell without making the same recipe with regular vanilla.
Matt - In my amateur baking experience, I've encountered four varieties of vanilla: (1) premium pure vanilla extract, as I've used in this recipe; (2) budget pure vanilla extract; (3) imitation vanilla extract; and (4) vanilla flavoring. If I were to use a slightly less expensive brand of the pure stuff, I highly doubt I'd be able to taste a significant difference since the dominant flavor here is chocolate.

However, I shared some of the brownies with coworkers and they noticed "something different" with these brownies. I have a feeling they were picking up on the use of pure vanilla versus imitation vanilla. The latter is synthetic and tastes synthetic. So, the use of pure vanilla here prevented my brownies from tasting "off-the-line" processed, which is a very good thing when it comes to homemade baked goods! :-)
blondie33 said…
I have 4 children and have been making these browines for over 20 years. If you double the recipe and put it in a 13x9 pan it makes a family size amount.
I am to the point of making 4 or 5 13x9 pans and sending them to my son at college, he prefers them with walnuts.
These are the best brownies!
Blondie33 - Oh my goodness! I can't even imagine what my kitchen would look like if I doubled the recipe for these brownies! Probably not a good idea since it's just me and I don't have others living with me to help consume all those sweets. Then again, I'm sure my coworkers would be thrilled if I showed up to work one day with a tray full of brownies!

It's so great that you're sending these goodies off to your son in college. I'm sure he appreciates having something to remind him of home. I know that I loved receiving care packages full of things my mother had baked for me.

I agree -- these are the best brownies!
CD said…
I made these but adjusted the recipe:
-I added extra cocoa to make them fudgier.
-To reduce the calories, I used one egg and made one flax egg (flax meal + warm water left for 5 minutes works as a binder and egg substitute)
-I added finely ground espresso powder to give them a mocha flavour.
-I put a small dollop of cashew butter in the middle of where I would cut each square on half of them and a white chocolate chunk on the other half.

Great recipe! Thanks and have a great day!

Check out my recipes at:
www.smilesarethesoulskisses.blogspot.com
CD - Thanks for the substitution suggestions! I do have a recipe for Mocha Peanut Butter Brownies you should try if you're able to eat peanut butter.
christine said…
Hello Michelle! I found this blog in Foodista and followed it here. This is a actually cool Fudgy Cocoa Brownies recipe. Keep it up and I may see you on Food Network one day. By the way you can place more Foodista widget in your past and future blogs so that other Foodista readers can follow and see your blog too. Just search for a related recipe or food in Foodista and use its widget. I hope to read more from you. Cheers!
Christine - Thanks for your comment! Maybe you're right -- maybe I will wind up on the Food Network some day :)