Candy bar brownies

Brownies! Deep dark chocolate brownies with leftover Easter candy in them. These brownies were excellent and they sold like hotcakes at work! I wanted to create a dessert that would use up all the boys' Easter candy - which is/was a LOT. I made 2 pans of brownies and included a lot of the cut up candy in the batter and then sprinkled it over the top of the chocolate frosting as well. Chocolate overload. I have a few favorite brownie recipes and this is definitely one of them. It includes about 2 tsps of espresso powder in the recipe. I'm not one for coffee tasting dessert but I know now from experience that a bit of espresso powder in a recipe or even a cup of strong coffee simply intensifies the chocolate depth & flavor. You cannot detect a definite coffee flavor. After my brownies baked & cooled, I topped them with a chocolate buttercream frosting. I'm all for frosting! I like a layer of thick rich frosting on just about any dessert. In fact, I'd rather eat frosting than cake. I'm the person who goes for the corner piece of a cake or the piece with a big frosting flower on it. I'd be happy eating a bowl of frosting. You think I'm kidding? No, I'm not. I LOVE frosting. My husband, Larry, on the other hand, will scrape off all but a see through thin layer of frosting from his piece of cake. I don't get it.

I digress........my brownies were wonderful and I wish you could taste them. The first 2 photos look like baked pans of brownies with icing on them but those pans are just the batter with the candy bits sprinkled on top. Ready to go in the oven! Notice the very first photo on top and the little hand in the upper left corner. Someone was trying to swipe a little taste. Hmmm.