Yum! Brownies!!!

It was far too cold to go out for a walk today. In fact, it was so cold that I ran to and from the mailbox so as to avoid lingering in the arctic wasteland, known as outside. I hope that this ends soon because I really don't like being stuck inside!! But it was so cold that most schools in the area were closed for the day.
So, anyway, I decided to spend my time in the kitchen, doing something fun... namely baking brownies. To be exact, pineapple brownies. My mom has a cookbook titled "Best of the Bake-off. It contains 2,000 recipes from 10 years of the Pillsbury Bakeoff. I think that it was published in 1959.  Well, my mom found that wonderful recipe in that book. The recipe was created by Josephine DeMarco of Chicago, Illinois. She was a "senior winner."
So, below is a illustrated guide to baking these wonderful brownies.

Your first step is to sift your dry ingredients. They are one and a half cups of flour, one teaspoon of double acting baking powder, one-half teaspoon of salt, and one-half teaspoon of cinnamon. Set aside.

The next step is to cream three-quarters of a cup of butter, gradually adding one and a half cups of granulated sugar. Three quarters of a cup of butter is one and a half sticks of butter. I prefer to use unsalted butter for baking.

Once you cream together the sugar and the butter, you'll add three eggs, one at a time and one teaspoon of vanilla extract. Then you will gradually add the dry ingredients. At this point, you will have your preliminary batter. You will need to remove one cup of batter from the bowl and place it in a separate bowl.

Here is the fun part! You will drain one cup of crushed pineapple, making sure that the liquid is removed. And then, you get to drink the pineapple juice!!! Yay!!!! (OK, so "drink the pineapple juice" wasn't actually in the original recipe, but I think that's a fine addition...)

Mix the pineapples into the one cup of batter that you placed in the separate bowl. Set aside.

Place two squares of unsweetened chocolate into a double boiler...

...melt the chocolate...

... until you have a nice, smooth consistency...

add the melted chocolate to the batter...

Blend until you get a lovely chocolate batter.

Place spoonfuls of the chocolate batter into your 9 x 13 inch pan. You should grease your pan prior to putting your batter into it. I pre-grease my pan with butter because butter is better. Shortening is often used but that is trans fat, which is now on the no-good list, but it wasn't in 1959...

I use a butter knife to spread the batter into a layer on the bottom of the pan.

Next, I place the batter with the pineapple on top of the first chocolate layer. Once again, I use a spoon to put the batter in the pan. Then I use a butter knife to spread the batter to form the second layer.

The is the second layer of the brownies.

Lastly, I add all of the remaining chocolate batter to the pan and spread that on top of the second layer. Altogether, there will be three layers in the batter. Then, the pan is placed in an oven that has been preheated to 375 degrees. I bake the brownies for 35 minutes. When you remove your pan, use a toothpick to test the brownies. If the toothpick comes out clean, place the pan on top of a metal rack or a trivet and let the brownies cool for fifteen minutes.

Here are the brownies, right out of the oven!

Yum! Brownies!

Even better with tea! Enjoy!!!