100th blogday...and killer brownies

First of all, this is my 100th post. So "Happy 100th Blogday" to you all, and thanks for reading about my crazy and random life!

As everyone knows, the best part of any birthday is not the presents, the balloons, the games, or being another year older...it's the cake. As one person put it: "My favorite song? 'Happy Birthday.' You got to love any song that ends in cake!" So in honor of this "blogday" here is a fabulous recipe for gluten-free brownies, which I found and then adapted yesterday while I was feeling blue.

You have to understand this very important fact about me: I find baking therapeutic. (Apparently I can't spell "therapeutic." I typed it in wrong three times before I finally gave up and used spellcheck!) When I am upset, mad, depressed, or even just bored, I like to bake stuff. Unfortunately, then I eat it! Last evening I was bummed because Robert had to work late for the 2nd night in a row, and I was craving chocolate, so I came up with these evil little babies. And then I ate way too many of them!

German Chocolate Brownies
adapted from this recipe

Whisk together:
1 1/4 cups Pamela's gluten free pancake and baking mix
1 cup of sugar
6 (generous) Tablespoons cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

In a small bowel or large cup, mix:
1/2 cup water
1/3 cup oil (I used coconut oil - if you do, make the water hot and dissolve the oil in it so it stays liquid)
1 egg (room temperature; to make it room temp quickly, place in warm water for a few minutes)
1 (generous) teaspoon vanilla

Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients. Add in 3/4 cup butterscotch chips or chocolate chips. Pour batter (it'll be thick) into a greased 8x8 glass baking dish. Sprinkle chopped pecans and shredded coconut on top of the
batter. (I suppose if you wanted it to taste even more like German chocolate cake, you could mix in some melted butter and brown sugar to simulate the actual frosting.) Bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes. I would advise baking it on one of the lower racks for most of the time and then moving it to the top rack for about the last 10 minutes - that way, the coconut will get all nice and toasted and brown, but not burn. These are fabulous warm, although they stick together better once they're cooled. ;-)

Mouths, enjoy - and waistlines, don't blame me!