I’m on my last day of my post-marathon recovery week and didn’t know what to do with myself this weekend without a race or a long run! Solution? Bake things and blog about it. After a 6 mile run and some errands, I whipped these up super quick before settling in to watch my UofA Wildcats unfortunately lose to the Bruins :(. Poor BF he can’t be too happy his Bruins win, because I’m so sad when my Wildcats lose. At least he has consolation brownie bites!
If you love the candy Almond Joy you’ll fall in love with these brownie bites, all the delicious flavors of an Almond joy wrapped up in a moist coconut and sweetened condensed milk laced brownie. I first tried these a couple of weeks ago when the BF and I made an impromptu trip to Phoenix to visit my folks and go to an Arizona Cardinals game. (you’ll soon realize as an Arizona native, I’m a HUGE AZ sports fan) My mom made them for us after getting the recipe from one of her quilting friends who had found it on Pinterest. You can find it in a few other places online, but this is the version my mom gave me.
The BF and I thought they were so delicious and they are so so easy to make! When my mom first made them she used cupcake liners like the recipe said to. We found however, that they didn’t release very easily from the brownie and we were picking bits off paper off the tasty chocolate coconut creation. Making them for the first time today, I decided to forgo the liners in favor of non-stick cupcake tins and PAM and thought they turned out much better!
Makes: 24 brownie bites
Bake time: 26-28 minutes
Prep time: 15 minutes
Ingredients:
1 box family size brownie mix
1 (14 oz) can sweetened condensed milk
1 (14 oz) bag sweetened dried coconut
1/4 cup milk
1 cup chocolate chips, melted
1/4 cup almonds
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees and prepare two cupcake pans by coating with PAM (this is crucial so they don’t stick!)
Prepare brownie mix according to package directions. (I used a Ghiradelhi brownie mix because that’s what the BF insisted we get while at Target today, but your favorite kind will work, as long as it doesn’t have chocolate chunks/chips.)
Fill each cupcake 1/2 full and bake for 12 minutes.
I don’t recommend sticking your fancy camera into a hot oven #anythingforablogpost
Meanwhile, it’s time to make the gooey coconut topping. In a clean bowl combine the coconut, sweetened condensed milk, and milk and mix well.
That’s a tasty spatula to lick at the end, not that I do that…
When the oven beeps carefully pull out the brownies and top each one with a heaping spoonful of the coconut mixture.
Left-handed spooning, right-handed picture snapping
Pop the trays back into the oven for another 14-16 minutes. When they oven beeps again take them out to cool and gaze hungrily at the delicious toasted coconut.
Who can resist gooey melty toasted coconut?
Let the brownie bites cool completely in the pan. This is super important, otherwise the brownies stick and fall apart when you try to remove them from the pan, (not that I tried to eat one early and burned my tongue or anything) about 20 -30 minutes.
I like to use a Ziplock baggie with a corner nipped off to get and even stream of melty chocolate.
While the treats are cooling carefully melt 1 cup chocolate chips. I use a Pyrex measuring cup in the microwave, but if you want to get fancy with your melting go ahead and bust out the double boiler. Melt the chips carefully about 30 seconds at a time, stirring after each zapping session until the chips are fully melted. When the brownies have cooled drizzle chocolate over the top and sprinkle the crushed almonds over the top.
The BF likes to enjoy these with a big glass of milk, I think they would probably be wonderful mushed over vanilla ice cream.
I didn’t have a long run planned, but I think I might have to fit in a 10 mile run to burn these babies off.
Happy baking!
peace.love.&running
MK
Cakerunner 