Zucchini Brownies

 Zucchini Brownies from http://mommyimhungry.blogspot.com was the pin for this post.

Tonight was Family Home Evening. We gather every Monday night (or another night as needed) as a family and have prayers, songs, lessons, and calendar planning.  We each take turns giving the lesson, leading the music etc.  It gives everyone the opportunity to grow in each area. It is important to us so we don't let a lot of things take priority over it.

For the kids one of the best parts is the treats served afterwards. As you can imagine the treat job is coveted. I'm not especially fond of chocolate, but the other 4 members of my family are so 4 out of 5 weeks we usually have something chocolate.

It was Gavin's turn this week. When he said he wanted brownies I knew just what zucchini recipe I would be doing today. Zucchini brownies. Gavin, of course didn't like the idea at all.  So I told him if the brownies didn't measure up then he could make cookies afterwards.

If you are doing the treat that means you also get to make it. He greased and floured the pan on his own.

Then in a large bowl you are supposed to add the oil, sugar etc.  When I turned around he had added the oil to the pan.  I really didn't want to clean out the pan and start over so we carefully poured it into the mixing bowl. It was a pretty good oil slick in that pan, but we got out as much as we could and this time didn't bother to re-flour it.

I was grateful for the added warning that the "batter" will be "dry and crumbly".  As we mixed it I could see that it wasn't going to get much like batter at all. 

Both of us were a little bit worried looking at it in the pan. Gavin even asked me about it and I let him know that this is what it is supposed to look like and we both hoped that was so.

The good news is I love pecans. Two family members are not so fond of them.  It was easy to sprinkle some pecans at one end of the pan and then just kind of spoon them over into the mix.

If I set the timer on my stove for the longest time on a recipe things usually come out just right. This time it wasn't done yet.  It took another 7-8 minutes. It was hard to tell if it was done as it looked as crumbly afterward as it did before. I was a little worried, but I didn't not say anything as I didn't want to be making cookies just because my big open mouth gave Gavin the idea these weren't good enough.

We found there wasn't enough powdered sugar in the frosting. It was very runny and wasn't sweet enough to our taste so while mixing it we added another cup of powdered sugar.  It still poured very easily over the top of the brownies.

Now, we were ready to see if these were going to be fall apart crumbles or a good brownie that sticks together.  We found them to be sort of in between.  They did stick together, but weren't the thick brownie you sometimes see. I should have pressed the crumbles down a little more I think. So...they were pretty much perfect for us.

There were no thumbs down or just OKs on this brownie recipe.  We had a firm 4 1/2 thumbs up (Gavin's thumb was at a diagonal). He kept reaching into the pan and getting more pieces though so we said it really was a thumbs up for all of us.  Until that is, Brady discovered that if Gavin didn't like them we would also make cookies. Then he immediately changed to a thumbs down and tried to get Gavin to do the same. It was too late though. Even I, the confessed not so much for chocolate person, really liked them. We even had several saying the frosting was especially good.

Verdict: Almost perfect recipe. Our only change would be added the powdered sugar to the frosting. I suspect though, my dark chocolate lover husband would have preferred it without the added sugar.