Engagement festivities reigned supreme this past weekend. The out of town guests arrived in Louisiana ready to meet and greet our family and to sample the local cuisine.
Boiled crawfish, crawfish étouffée, fried catfish, and Gulf snapper headlined the menu, but it’s important to remember a simple fact of culinary life- Midwesterners can’t survive an entire weekend on Louisiana seafood alone. I’m a born and raised Louisianian, and even I can’t do the crawfish thing too often.
It’s not a party until someone bakes, cooks, whips, or stirs! Fresh Louisiana strawberries served with fruit dip, Southern Krispy cheese straws, and dark chocolate brownies with Louisiana pecans threw a culinary life preserver to the anti-crawfish crowd.
To frost or not to frost a brownie is always a consideration. I made a last minute executive chef decision to go with the frosting, scrambling to the grocery store to pick up a can of Duncan Hines home-style milk chocolate frosting. What begins a store bought frosting ends a delicious Kahlua Coffee Frosting delight courtesy of a couple of flavor adjustments and infusions. Things become mighty tasty with the rich flavors of instant coffee granules, Kahlua, Kosher salt, and Hershey’s dark chocolate.
Kahlua Coffee Frosting
Ingredients
1 can Duncan Hines creamy home-style milk chocolate frosting
1½ teaspoon instant coffee granules
1 teaspoon coarse Kosher salt
2 Tablespoons Kahlua
6 squares Hershey’s dark chocolate
Directions
Add instant coffee granules, Kosher salt, and Kahlua to frosting. Stir well to blend all ingredients together. The bite of the coffee granules is pitch perfect, the coarse Kosher salt wakes up the flavors, and the Kahlua complements the coffee so well.
Use a smooth edge knife to frost the tops of the brownies. Make dark chocolate curls with a potato or vegetable peeler by running the peeler across the top of the chocolate, allowing curls to fall on the tops of the brownies. Work quickly with the chocolate-it melts super fast from the heat of your hand.
