Coffee Brownies, or We must stay upright to the end of Friday

We at A Book of Cookrye will freely admit we must drink coffee with training wheels and on ice. However, there come times when you must perforce spend time choking down dreadful assignments. You know, those times when you realize no one has accused your teacher of competency. This is when the only way to stay up is through caffeination. This is when adding instant coffee to things that don't usually have it seems more appealing than it should.

Coffee Bars ¼ c shortening ¼ c butter 2 c brown sugar (preferably dark) 2 eggs 1 tsp baking powder ½ tsp salt 5 tbsp instant coffee 1½ c flour (whole-wheat is surprisingly good) Heat oven to 350°. Grease a 9x13 pan. Pour the coffee granules onto a little plate and press them with your thumb, the bottom of a can, or whatever you like until they are a powder. Melt shortening and butter. Stir in brown sugar, beating thoroughly. Add eggs, vanilla, salt, baking powder, and coffee. Mix well. Stir in the flour. Bake 20-25 minutes, or until a knife in the middle comes out with no liquid on it (it needn't come up clean and dry). Ideally, it will still have little clumps of brownie clinging to it- that's when they're done but still soft and gooey. Cut while hot.

If nothing else, this has more sugar in it than an iced coffee usually does.

Fortunately, we have a jar of instant coffee from the coffee cheesecake. After deciding moderation in instant coffee is for suckers, we were prepared to be cognizant through the worst of assignments. In fact, we had it in us to be awake through anything.

Just because we're awake doesn't mean we have common sense.

We at A Book of Cookrye often have received the allegation that we cannot drink coffee without training wheels. Usually, our response is "Do you have a point?" We all have our preferences, but why are you attempting to brag about the certificate you received for Best At Drinking Black Coffee? Furthermore, since most of these remarks are leveled at us when we are really tired and attempting to caffeinate ourselves back into the real world, is this really the right time to assert your superiority for petty reasons?
But enough about that. The batter for these was so thick that spreading it into the pan was like playing with Play-Doh. It's quite soothing after working over dreadfully written lines of code.

They made the kitchen smell like brown sugar and coffee. It was so enticing I seriously considered buying decaf just so I could have these when I'm not trying to stay awake.

And these are delicious! I regretted absolutely nothing. A minor caution: they go from baked to overdone and hardened really quickly, which may not be the best thing for when you're too tired to watch for that. However, they taste really good, and you'll definitely be awake enough to be fully aware of how sick you are from eating so many of them.

N. B. If you want to win a cookbook handmade by me, be sure to enter the recipe contest!