Late Night Munchies = Ghirardelli Dark Chocolate Brownies!

What happens when your uncle goes out of town to a birthday party for the evening and your aunt wants to have a wild party? You spend the evening playing Wii Bowling, getting the munchies, eating every chip and chocolate candy in the household, and finding a box of Ghirardelli Dark Chocolate Brownie mix in the back of the pantry. Okay, that may not specifically be what happens to everyone in situations such as this, but it is how things went down at my aunt's house last night! We ate the last of my Naturebox Nacho Lime Tortilla Chips, a whole bunch of Costco brand tortilla chips, and I personally ate just about all of the Andes Mints that were in a basket on the coffee table. After I mentioned wishing we could go to Burger King or Taco Bell, my aunt looked into the pantry and found these!

Intrigued, we paused our Wii Bowling game in order to make the brownies. The batter was very simple to make and only took a few minutes. I meant to take a picture of all of the steps of the cooking process, but after taking this picture of the dry mixture, I forgot to take the rest. Sorry! All that it involved was adding water, eggs and cooking oil. I was surprised that my aunt added olive oil... I never thought of olive oil as the type of cooking oil you'd add to sweets.  Has anyone else tried this? I've always used the more vaguely named "Vegetable oil" or even more vaguely named "cooking oil."

My aunt commented on how thick the batter was. I wish I'd gotten a picture to show you. She thought it was thicker than most brownie batters she'd made.

We had to wait an impossibly long time (about 45 minutes) for the brownies to bake. I also learned that, although I had thought it was about midnight by then, it was only 8 pm. It was like being in a weird time warp. But I digress...

Finally, after 45 minutes had passed, my aunt took the finished product out of the oven.

My aunt also had some Cool Whip in the fridge, which resulted in this conversation:

Here is what the final product looked like, after I put some on a plate and added a generous dollop of Cool Hwip.

It was delicious! It was super moist and rich and chocolaty, with little chunks of melted chocolate chip. For my aunt, it was actually too chocolaty, and she ended up pushing the plate away after only eating half. For me, it was amazing, especially with a side glass of milk to help wash it down. I could have eaten several helpings of it, but after eating all of those chips and candies I was starting to feel a little full. However, I did eat some more of it for breakfast the next morning!

This Ghirardelli Brownie Mix is the perfect thing to tuck away in your cabinet for when you are craving something especially chocolaty and delicious. It is so easy to make, and will completely satisfy your munchies. I will definitely be adding this to the grocery cart next time I go to the store.