Gluten-Free Rocky Road Brownies #Recipe by @LibbyKlein

 Libby Klein Brownies are one of the easiest recipes to make gluten-free. A good brownie requires very little flour to begin with. My jumping off point for this recipe was Martha Stewart's Rocky Road Brownies, in case you want to make the original. I had to tweak the recipe to be gluten free, and I add a couple ingredients to round out the flavor. The first addition is my homemade vanilla extract, and the second is a teaspoon of espresso powder. Espresso powder makes chocolate taste a little more chocolaty. If you absolutely hate the flavor of coffee, just leave it out. 

Have you tried adding a little coffee or espresso powder to your chocolate? Leave me a note in the comments and let me know.

Gluten-Free Rocky Road Brownies

Yield: 9 large or 12 medium squares

Ingredients:

½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut into pieces, plus more for pan
1 bag (12 ounces) semisweet chocolate chips
½ cup granulated sugar
½ cup packed light-brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract
1 teaspoon salt

1 tsp espresso powder
2 large eggs
¾ cup gluten-free flour blend
1 ½ cups marshmallows
½ cup chopped nuts

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line an 8-inch-square baking pan with parchment paper, leaving an overhang on two sides.

In a heatproof bowl set over (not in) a saucepan of simmering water, combine butter and 1 cup chocolate chips. Heat, stirring occasionally, just until melted, 3 to 5 minutes. 

Remove mixture from heat; stir in sugars, vanilla, salt, then eggs, and finally flour and espresso powder, stirring just until combined. 

Spread batter evenly in prepared pan. Bake 30 minutes. The center should not be jiggly at this point. Remove from oven, and sprinkle with most of the remaining chocolate chips (reserve some for the very top), then marshmallows, then nuts, then the rest of your chocolate chips. 

Bake until chocolate is shiny and marshmallows are puffed, about 5 minutes. (My marshmallows did not puff very much. They were also firmer than my usual brand.) Cool completely in pan. Using paper overhang, lift cake onto a work surface; cut into 16 squares. These were delicious! If you want to toast the marshmallows and make them gooey right before serving, you can stick them under the broiler for a minute - but keep an eye on them!

Have you tried adding a little coffee or espresso powder to your chocolate? Leave me a note in the comments and let me know.

Gluten-free baker Poppy McAllister and her aunt Ginny are looking forward to a quiet, homey Christmas at their B&B in Cape May, but unfortunately, death isn’t taking a holiday this year . . .

Ever since Thanksgiving, Poppy and her pals have been left with an unsolved mystery of the romantic kind. But at least this mystery isn’t the kind that involves murder. That all changes when the body of a fish supplier is discovered in the kitchen of her ex’s restaurant—and he’s frozen, not fresh.

For once, it’s not Poppy who tripped over the corpse, yet she can’t escape being drawn in since the victim has a note taped to him reading Get Poppy. Figures—an engagement ring isn't labeled, but the dead guy is addressed to her. Now, while Aunt Ginny plans a tree-trimming party and pressures Poppy to decode a mysterious old diary, the amateur sleuth is asked to “unofficially” go undercover at the restaurant to help the police. Until then, the only crime Poppy had been dealing with was Figaro’s repeated thefts of bird ornaments from the tree; now it looks like it’s going to be a murder-y Christmas after all.

 

Libby Klein grew up in Cape May, NJ where she attended high school in the '80s. Her

classes revolved mostly around the Culinary sciences and Drama, with one brilliant semester in Poly-Sci that may have been an accident. She loves to drink coffee, bake gluten-free goodies, collect fluffy cats, and translate sarcasm for people who are too serious. She writes from her Northern Virginia office where she serves a very naughty black smoke Persian named Sir Figaro Newton. You can keep up with her shenanigans by signing up for her Mischief and Mayhem Newsletter on her website. www.LibbyKleinBooks.com/Newsletter/