I have to admit that I hardly ever

I have to admit that I hardly ever make brownies from scratch. I usually make whatever mix is handy, most recently a Betty Crocker version from the local grocery store, bought in a craving-induced after-work stop. They were bad. So now I keep an emergency mix of my favorite variety on hand – Trader Joe’s Truffle Brownies.

When I was invited to bring a dessert to a recent dinner party, I eyed my box of stand-by mix in the cupboard. I knew they were good, but I had a whole Saturday afternoon and a few brownie recipes in my Web site recipe boxes. I decided to go for scratch brownies.

Of course I picked one of the easiest recipes I could. And I decided I wanted them to have a coffee flavor, since that is Geoff’s favorite. (And I wanted to use up some of the espresso powder I bought when I made chocolate cookies for the holidays.)

These easy brownies turned out to be incredibly irresistible – super moist and chocolaty with a good punch of espresso flavor thrown in. I had forgotten how amazing “from-scratch” brownies could taste!