Brownies for Sinners & Gluttons

If you’re looking for sensible gluten free brownies that taste good while being low in calories, fat and carbohydrates, then be aware!

These are not the brownies for you.

If you want brownies that you can eat and still respect yourself in the morning, then you would be better pleased to look elsewhere for your treat.

If you want brownies that don’t fiendishly wake you in the middle of night, forcing you to stumble into the kitchen like a crackhead looking for one more hit before morning, then you would be better off with a different recipe, at a different website.

These brownies are not noble. They are not virtuous.

These are the brownies that church ladies deal like meth in the back hallways of damp church basements. You have to be willing to walk a dark and dangerous path to just to get a bite of these things.

Imagine what I had to go through, the depths of depravity I had to navigate, to come back with the entire recipe. The world of gluttony is a frightening path for the uninitiated.

I can only  warn you with earnest compassion, do not make the brownies.

Do not eat them.

Do not feed them to your family.

These are the brownies the Dark Side uses to seduce earnest young Padawans from the glorious light, to sinister darkness.

Beware.

These brownies lead only to destruction. They rob you of your dignity. They smash your good intentions like a mudslide. They make health food seem like a far and distant dream.

Turn away, if not for yourself, then for your poor defenseless children.

Turn away and follow a different, more righteous path.

Brownies for Sinners & Gluttons

Ingredients

• 1 cup vegetable shortening
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 cup unsweetened cocoa
• 1-1/3 cups rice flour (if you eat gluten, you could also use all-purpose white flour)
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 4 eggs

Directions

You do need electric beaters for this recipe. The mixing is possible without them, but it’s a lot of work for your arm. Perhaps it would work off some of the calories and corruption.

Into a large mixing bowl measure the shortening, sugar, cocoa, rice flour (or wheat flour) and salt. Beat with electric beaters until well mixed. Start at a slow speed because the flour and cocoa will poof up into your face like dry dust if you start out mixing too fast. Eventually all of the dry ingredients will be evenly coated with the shortening so it won’t be quite so dusty. When it’s all evenly textured add the vanilla and eggs. Beat for about a minute or until you have a thick batter. It will be very thick. Like paste. You may despair that it is too thick to make brownies. You may worry that I am leading you down a dark evil path to biscuit brownies that are dry and disgusting. I beg you to bear with me only a few more moments. Cast aside your concerns and persevere despite your doubts.  Before you’re done re-reading the recipe to make sure you haven’t made a mistake, the dry ingredients will miraculously emulsify with the eggs and you will have chocolate paste worthy of any 3-year old worth her mud pie.

Scrape your chocolate paste into a well greased 9 by 13-inch pan. Spread it out as best you can, but don’t fret unduly. Bake at 350° for 25-minutes. The brownies will be set, but still appear a little underdone. Allow them to cool for at least an hour. Frost the tops with the following recipe. Cut into pieces and serve to anyone you need to enslave. After one bite, they will be yours for evermore.

As an afterthought, a better name for these brownies might be minion-bait. When one is in need of minions, or must pay tribute to minions who have done exceptionally well in their laborious duties–these brownies are more than adequate for the task. Be very careful not to divulge the shamefully high sugar, hydrogenated fat and salt content to your minions. Simply allow your minions to believe that the brownies taste good, and therefore must be good. This is appropriate behavior for both super villains and evil geniuses. Decent and honorable women should never stoop to these levels.

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Peanut Butter Frosting for Minion-Bait Brownies

In a mixing bowl measure:

• 1/2 cup peanut butter
• 1/4 cup vegetable shortening
• Pinch Salt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/3 cup soymilk (or dairy milk)
• 2 cups powdered sugar

Use electric beaters to mix everything until it is smooth and fluffy. Use to frost brownies. If desired you may sprinkle peanuts on top of the frosting. This makes them very pretty and people think they have something extra special.

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Note From Maggie:

In case you couldn’t tell, this recipe is written as a farce.

The brownies are quite tasty. My family found them addictively good. Unfortunately the brownies are made from all sorts of bad things–most notably evil hydrogenated vegetable shortening. As a matter of fact, the original recipe that this gluten free version is based upon can be found at Crisco.com. It’s not a healthy recipe, but it is glorious junk food, which is something you don’t get a lot of when you’re eating gluten-free on a budget. I share the recipe because sometimes you want junk food. And if you’re like me, then every time you eat junk food, you feel like a gluttonous sinner, ripe for the picking when the Dark Side comes calling. Thus my idea to write this recipe up the way I did. If you do not have a sense of humor, you may not “get” this recipe. That’s okay. This recipe can just sit here by itself and it promises not to bother anyone else. For such an evil recipe, this seems like a pretty good compromise to me. 🙂