Chocolate BlogHop: Red Velvet Brownies

I've been experimenting with brownies lately and couldn't wait to try making Red Velvet Brownies. My last attempt at making brownies didn't go so well and I really didn't want to mess with my original recipe this time around. This is my first attempt at making something "red velvet" and I wanted it to be similar to a red velvet cupcake with cream cheese frosting. My only problem was I had no idea how much red food coloring gel to use. I looked up tons of recipes but they were all different to mine and all used different amounts of color. I could have followed a different recipe but I wanted these to be based on my quick easy brownies. I feel I used enough red coloring gel but it didn't show though on the pictures unless I used the flash, see the picture after the jump to see the true redness of these red velvet brownies! These really did turn out great, I loved the cream cheese frosting on top of the brownies. These would make a great Valentine's Day treat.

February is #chocolatelove month!

Please join in on the #chocolatelove fun by linking up any chocolate recipe from the month of February 2012. Don't forget to link back to this post, so that your readers know to come stop by the #chocolatelove event! The twitter hashtag is #chocolatelove :). Make sure to check out all the co-hosts below.

Recipe 
Ingredients: 
Brownies:
1/2 cup butter, melted
1 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp red food coloring gel
1/2 cup plain flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
Frosting:
inspired by the pink whisk
70g butter
200g cream cheese
400g icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract

Steps: 

1. Preheat oven to 350F/175C. Grease a 9x9 inch baking pan.
2. In a medium bowl, mix together the butter and sugar. Beat in eggs, one at a time. 
3. In a small bowl, mix together cocoa powder, vanilla, and red food coloring gel. Press the gel into the cocoa until you can no longer see it and there are no big lumps. Mix thoroughly into the egg mixture.
4. Combine flour, baking powder, and salt; gradually stir into the egg mixture until well blended. Spread the batter evenly into the prepared pan.
5. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until the brownie begins to pull away from edges of pan. Let cool on a wire rack before cutting into squares.
6. In a medium bowl, cream together the butter and cream cheese until it is well combined. 
7. Add in the vanilla and 100g of icing sugar until fully mixed in. Keep adding 100g at a time until it is all added in. 
8. Place the frosting in the fridge until the brownies are completely cooled and ready to decorate. 

Co-hosts:

A Little Bit of Everything, Astig Vegan, Badger Girl Learns to Cook, Baker Street, Baking and Cooking A Tale of Two Loves, Baking Extravaganza, BigFatBaker, Bon a Croquer, CafeTerraBlog, Cake Duchess, Cakeballs Cookies and More, Cooking with Books, Creative Cooking Corner, Easily Good Eats, Elephant Eats, Georgie Cakes, Hobby and More, Java Cupcake, Kitchen Belleicious, Mike's Baking, Mis Pensamientos, No One Likes Crumbley Cookies, Oh Cake, Preheat the Oven, Rico sin Azucar, Savoring Every Bite, Simply Reem, Smart Food and Fit, Soni's Food for Thought, Sprint 2 the Table, Teaspoon of Spice, That Skinny Chick Can Bake!!!, The Dusty Baker, The More than Occasional Baker, The Spicy RD, The Wimpy Vegetarian, Vegan Yak Attack!, Vegetarian Mamma, You Made That?

In this picture you can see the redness of these brownies. In person, they looked red and with the flash on it really showed, just wished it showed in the pictures above.