Toasted Coconut Topped Bittersweet Brownies

Ingredients:
6 oz 70% dark chocolate bars*
3/4 cup flour
3/4 cup coconut sugar
1/4 cup cocoa
4 tablespoons butter
1/2 teaspoon vanilla paste
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 eggs, at room temperature
1/2 cup coconut flakes

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350. Spray with baking spray or grease and flour one 8x8 baking pan. In a saucepan, melt the butter, cocoa and chocolate together over low heat. Stir occasionally, and when the chocolate is nearly melted, remove from heat. Whisk until smooth. Set aside. In a small bowl, stir together flour, salt, baking powder. In a separate bowl, beat together the coconut sugar, eggs and vanilla paste until frothy. Slowly stream the chocolate mixture into the eggs and mix to combine. Gradually stir in the dry ingredients and mix until the batter is thick and glossy. Pour into prepared pan. Sprinkle with coconut flakes. Bake 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool completely before slicing and serving.

*I used 2 Green and Black bars (mince 1 ounce) I broke into the scored squares.

My thoughts:

I haven't made brownies in forever (years?) but I had all of the ingredients in my crammed baking cabinets (sounds more glamorous than it is) and had a chocolate craving so here we go! I came across coconut sugar when I was at the grocery store recently. I had never seen it before and only vaguely had heard of it so of course I picked it up! It smells sort of coconut-y but looks like demerara sugar so I thought I could use it instead of brown sugar in some brownies I wanted to make. Luckily it worked! These are very dark chocolate-y brownies and the coconut provides a perfect slight tropical note. I will note that these are more "adult" brownies (unless you know a child like I was who was obsessed with dark chocolate nearly since birth), the chocolate is quite dark, there isn't much sugar and the coconut topping is unsweetened. I cut the pan into 9 square but you could go smaller.