Chocolate Cinnamon Chili Brownies

Ingredients

1/2 cup (115 g) butter, melted
1 cup sugar
1/2 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 eggs
1/2 cup flour
1/3 cup cocoa
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 – 2 teaspoons cinnamon (optional)
1/2 – 1 teaspoon chili powder (optional)

Directions

In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar. Add the vanilla and eggs, and mix well. Sift in the flour, cocoa, baking powder, salt, cinnamon (if using), and chili powder (if using).
Pour the mixture into a greased 9-inch pan, and bake at 180C / 350F for 20 to 25 minutes.

My Notes

If you want regular brownies, just leave out the cinnamon and/or chili powder.

These needed 25 minutes in my oven, and I used a round silicone pan because I couldn’t find my square metal baking tin.
I used the entire 2 teaspoons of cinnamon because I don’t believe there is such a thing as "too much cinnamon". 🙂
The last time I made these, I also added 1/2 teaspoon of Kashmiri chili powder. You can taste it in there but it’s not too spicy — which is good, because I’m a wimp about spicy foods. 😉
Once cooled to room temperature, I wrapped individual slices in clingfilm and put them in an airtight container in the freezer.

Other variations

Double the batch, keeping the cinnamon & Kashmiri chili powder in one baking tin. In the other baking tin, I dropped small bits of crunchy peanut butter into the batter (using about 5 tablespoons total), and swirled it around to marble it slightly.

Further Experimentation

This works just fine with 1/2 of whole wheat flour instead of regular white flour, although that time it took 30 min in my oven for the round silicone baking pan. (Dusted with cocoa power instead of pre-greased.)