It was my younger daughter's birthday a couple of weeks ago, so I made her a birthday cake from a great brownie recipe.

This is my entry for this week's @foodfightfriday challenge.

Brownies

Cream together:

1/2 cup butter (1 stick)
1 cup sugar

Beat in:

2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla

Stir in:

1/3 cup cocoa powder
1/2 cup flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking powder

Spread in buttered 9x9 inch square pan.

Bake at 350 F for 25-30 minutes.

While the brownies are baking, make the...

Ganache

(Ganache is a fancy term for a chocolate icing, especially a thick one. Yum!)

Beat together:

3 Tablespoons butter
3 Tablespoons cocoa powder
1 Tablespoon honey
1 teaspoon vanilla

Stir in:

1 cup powdered sugar

At this point, I actually had a bit of a mess and couldn't see that it was going to turn out right. I was reminded about how my mother used to talk about how making frosting was a delicate art. Sometimes, she needed less powdered sugar and more liquid and sometimes, it was the other way around. It has to do with humidity - and Wyoming is very low humidity most of the year. So...

Tablespoon by tablespoon, I added some:

milk

That did the trick. Now, it looks like ganache.

Now to wait for the brownies to finish baking...

And take them out of the oven.

While the brownies are still very warm, spread it with the ganache so that it melts to make a delicious glaze.

Since it was my daughter's birthday, I put a bunch of garish sprinkles across the cake (ones that I can't eat so that I wouldn't be tempted to eat any!)

And there we are, one brownie-turned-birthday-cake!

Recipe Cards

Feel free to print and save these for home use.

Two of my kitchen witches. One hung in my grandmother's kitchen as long as I can remember, so I have mine - adding a certain magickal spice to my cooking, presumably...
My grandmother's now lives in my mother's kitchen.

Previous recipes in Lori's Cookbook

Holidays (Christmas, Thanksgiving, etc.)

Cranana-Chumpkin Bread
Cranberry-Berry Sauce (canning too)
Cranberry Juice Drink
Cranberry Swirl Cheesecake
Crustless Pumpkin Pie
Drop Sugar Cookies - Christmas, Valentines, whatever you like!
Gravlax (Swedish Marinated Salmon)

Breakfasts

Basic French Toast
Buttermilk Pancakes - including low-carb and grain-free options.

Breads

Cranana-Chumpkin Bread
Nearly No Carb Keto Bread - demo only, follow the link to the recipe. (grain free)
No-Knead Bread
Fathead Dough - a grain free substitute for many bread situations!

Snacks

Drop Sugar Cookies
Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

Sauces

Spaghetti Sauce
Basic Salsa
Garlic-Herb Butter

Food as Medicine

Egg Drop Soup

Desserts

Cranberry Swirl Cheesecake
Crustless Pumpkin Pie
Peach Cornmeal Cobbler
Peach Crisp
Tapioca Pudding

DIY Ingredients

Buttermilk

Canning

Rebel Canning - a general guide about what I do, and why I don't always follow USDA guidelines.
Cranberry-Berry Sauce
Cranberry Juice Drink
Meatballs and Spaghetti Sauce

Note: All photos are mine - Pentax K30, Samsung NX11, Nikon 7200.

Lori Svensen
author/designer at A'mara Books
photographer/graphic artist for Viking Visual
(Buy my work at RedBubble)
verified author on Goodreads
find me on Twitter

Brownies with Chocolate Ganache - Lori's Cookbook