With Valentine’s Day just around the corner (psst…boys, it’s one week away!), there are lots of material things I could blog about wanting to receive or give…but I won’t. Instead, I will share a recipe for divine, delicious, mouthwatering, and {insert every positive word associated with delicious food possible} brownies. 

The recipe to follow is essentially this recipe that my coworker shared with me. Intrigued by both her testimony about how tasty they are, and the name, crack brownies, I decided I had to give it a go.

My verdict? Yes, they are AH-MAZING. I added a few extra steps to the recipe to make them all lovey dovey, so they can be gifted as a sweet treat to your sweetie, bestie, or anyone you want to shower with love this Valentine’s Day. Trust me, you’ll blow them away with these.

Here’s the recipe:

Prep time: 25 minutes | Cooking time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

Stick and a half of unsalted butter

2 oz (56 g) unsweetened chocolate (I used Baker’s)

A heaping 1/4 cup of cocoa powder

2 cups of sugar

3 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla

1 cup flour

…and the secret ingredient that makes them crack brownies: 1 teaspoon Maldon salt or Himalayan pink salt. This is a key ingredient, and can’t be substituted with other salts such as kosher or table.

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

1. In a saucepan, melt the butter with the unsweetened chocolate. Once they are melted, turn off the heat and move the pot to a cold burner to let it cool.

2. Now, stir in the remaining ingredients: cocoa powder, sugar, eggs, vanilla, and flour.

3. When that is all well mixed together, pour the batter into a 8″x8″ greased square pan.

4. Sprinkle the top of the batter with the Malton salt, giving it a good coating.

5. Put pan in the oven and bake for 30-35 minutes.

6. Cool 1 hour at room temperature, then cut. The original recipe said to follow this with 1 hour in the fridge, but I found that this made the brownies too hard. Next time, I will skip the fridge.

Ta-da!

Now, for the super easy steps to make them all cute!

What you’ll need:

Ribbon

Heart shape cookie cutter

Bamboo skewers

1. Using the cookie cutter, cut the brownie into heart shapes. Ensure that the cutter goes all the way through the brownie before taking it out, otherwise you may ruin some of the hearts.

2. Cut a bamboo skewer in half, and stick the two halves into the heart shape brownie. Finish off with curled ribbon to tie the skewers together.

Give it a try and you’ll see how seriously easy to make and delicious they are. Good luck, and let me know how it goes!

Thank you for reading!