AND A GIVEAWAY!

Happy Valentine’s Day! I don’t typically post on Tuesdays, but since today is a special day, I wanted to share something really yummy with you guys! I can’t believe that I have had this blog for 9 months and have not yet posted a red velvet recipe! I LOVE red velvet anything! And although it may be a little cliche to post a red velvet recipe today, I don’t even care because these red velvet brownies are so good!

I made this recipe up on the fly and while these brownies were pretty good, they were a little too cakey for my taste. I prefer brownies that are somewhere in between being cakey and fudgey. So, when you read the recipe, I provided the recipe I followed, but if you would prefer for your brownies to be fudgier, please note the changes in parentheses.

Hubs and I will be staying in and plan to have a nice fondue dinner at home tonight. We HATE crowds and are total homebodies, so a nice relaxing night at home is perfect for me! What are you all doing today?

After you read the recipe, don’t forget to scroll down to enter my GIVEAWAY!!

Red Velvet Brownies

Makes about 2 dozen brownies

Ingredients (Follow ingredients in parentheses for fudgier brownies):

– 1 1/4 cups flour (or 1 cup flour)

– 1 tsp. baking powder

– 2 cups granulated sugar

– 1/2 tsp. salt

– 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted

– 1/2 cup buttermilk*

– 3 eggs, room temperature

- 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

– 2 oz. unsweetened chocolate, melted (or 4 oz.)

– 1 tsp. vanilla

– 1 tsp. vinegar

– 1 tbs. red food coloring or 2-3 tsp. gel food coloring*

Ingredients for the Cream Cheese Frosting:

– 8 oz. cream cheese, softened

– 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened

– 2 cups confectioner’s sugar

– 1 tsp. vanilla

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prep a 9×13 baking dish (or use a jelly a roll pan that is similar in size (I used a 15 1/4″ L x 10 1/4″ W jelly roll pan) with parchment paper. Spray the paper with non-stick spray.

2. In a bowl, add the flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, and cocoa powder. Mix until well-combined. Set aside.

3. In another bowl, beat together the butter, eggs, and buttermilk. Stir in the melted chocolate, vanilla, vinegar, and food coloring. Then add the dry mixture to the wet mixture. Stir until well-combined. Evenly spread the batter in a baking dish or pan. Bake for about 25-30 minutes* until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Allow the brownies to cool completely before frosting.

4. For the frosting, cream together the butter and cream cheese. Add the vanilla. Add the confectioner’s sugar one cup at a time and mix until well-combined.

Notes:
- Don’t have buttermilk on hand? Simply add a tsp. of vinegar or lemon juice to regular milk and let sit for 5-10 minutes.
- I prefer to use red gel food coloring for these. First, you can use less and get the same effect as you can with liquid color. I also prefer it here because it does not taint the taste of the brownies.
- If you use a 9×13 pan, the bake time will be closer to 30 minutes. I used a jelly roll pan that was a little larger, so the batter was spread out more and it took closer to 25 minutes.

Ok, now that we got the brownies out of the way, let’s get to the giveaway! If you like me on Facebook, you may have been reading that I was trying to get to 500 likes. Well, thanks to some wonderful support of my readers and other bloggers, I got to 500! I made a promise that when I got to 500 I would have a giveaway!

A couple of weeks ago, I posted my list for Valentine’s Day Gifts for Foodies. One of the items I featured was this adorable coffee scoop from Uncommon Goods:

After going through all of the comments, this adorable coffee scoop seemed to be the most popular item on the list. And while the Hubs is my main Valentine, you all are also my Valentine (insert obligatory “Awwwwww” here)! So, as a thank you to you all, I am going to give away this coveted scoop to 1 lucky reader!

This giveaway is open until SUNDAY, Feb. 19th at 11:59PM (EST) and is open to U.S. residents only (sorry international friends! Uncommon Goods doesn’t ship outside the U.S!).

1. For your main entry, leave a comment telling me your best or worst Valentine’s Day story!

For extra entries:

2. Like Eat. Drink. Love. on Facebook. Leave me a separate comment telling me you did so.

3. Follow Eat. Drink. Love. on Twitter. Leave me a separate comment telling me you did so.

4. Tweet about my giveaway. Be sure to mention @eatdrinkluv in your tweet so I know you tweeted. Leave me a separate comment telling me you did so.

5. Follow me on Pinterest. Leave me a separate comment telling me you did so.

Ok, so that’s 5 ways to win the coffee scoop! The winner will be announced on Monday, Feb. 20th. The winner will be chosen via a random number generator. Winner has 24 hours to claim prize or a new winner will be chosen.

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