TCHO Brownies

The last Offering from TCHO to The Chocolate Cult which we have to review is their 8oz bag of 66% organic baking drops.  The bag contains these discs of chocolate instead of the more narrow but much thicker chips you find in most bagged baking chocolate.  Your Chocolate Priestess will write a bit about what this is important for higher purity chocolates in a few paragraphs.   Let me be blunt: these are not cheap and the ones we are using today are a dollar more than the other drops TCHO sells.  Either you buy these for special occasions or you must make a lot fewer treats than I do, Sisters and Brothers.

The recipe I used can be found on either their website at the link above or on the back of the 66% bag.  I changed a few things so these are the ingredients I actually used.

8 oz bag TCHO 66% Organic Baking Drops
10 T "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter" stick spread
3/4 C "Egg Beaters"
1 1/4 C Splenda sugar
1/2 C Whole Wheat Flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
3 T unsweetened cocoa powder

I pre-heated the oven to 350°F, I have a gas oven.  I cut the stick spread into about 1/2 T pieces and added the chips. Then I microwaved them on high for 30 second intervals stirring at each break for a total of a 1.5 minutes.  When you have a wider surface area and purer chocolate, it melts very easily in the microwave if you stir and melt in short intervals.  It saves energy and dishes which save water and time later on.

In another bowl I whisked together the eggs and the sugar until it was smooth and I couldn't see any grains.  This was my second bowl and I wish I could have felt comfortable enough with the product to have made it all in one bowl.

Then I whisked in the melted chocolate mixture until it was all blended and dark.  I don't like to waste things so I make sure I scrap as much of the melted chocolate as I could.

Finally, I added the baking powder, the cocoa, and finally the flour.  I whisked each dry ingredient in completely before adding the next.  Honestly do we need to dirty even more pans with all this sifting and double boiler using?

Again I made a different decision and just sprayed my 9 X 13 glass pan with no stick, no fat, no cholesterol spray.  I set it to bake for 20 minutes but around 14 minutes the dark chocolate scent filled the house.  That's interesting because I didn't find the drops themselves to be particularly fragrant when I opened the bag.

The brownies looked and smelled beautiful coming out of the oven.  I let them cool then cut them before serving.  They cut very easily and lifted up in one piece.  I cut the entire pan into 24 pieces.  The great thing about my 9 X 13 pan is that I have a plastic lid I can use on it so everything is easy to store and I don't need to dirty another container.

I personally prefer my brownies thicker but these were very intensity chocolaty and even with the amount of sugar in them, not very sweet at all.  They had a definite bitter aftertaste.  

These are not calorie friendly brownies not even with the substitutions I made.  Share them with someone or more than one person and try to spread out the enjoyment over several days. The bag of drops themselves have almost 11.5 servings each with 110 calories made of 4.5g saturated fat, 7g sugars, 2g protein, with a touch of calcium and 6% iron you need daily.  I'm surprised given that this is 66% cacao content that it lack any fiber at all.

TCHO also offers 68% baking drops if you want something a bit darker and don't mind if if it's organic or not. Both are Fair Trade certified so you can assume your cocoa wasn't grown using slave or child labor, problems in the over all cocoa trade.