POM Wonderful Brownies

A few weeks ago the people at POM Wonderful asked if they could send us some bottles of POM juice to experiment with in recipes. Who are we to turn down free stuff? It’s a recession y’all! Rest assured we would never spend the time blogging about something that  we didn’t feel the need to share with our readers, but the POM recipe was, well, wonderful! First up, Double Chocolate Pom Brownies.

I’ve been wanting to make brownies for while now and due to a time crunch yesterday I needed to make something quick and easy. Bars and brownies are the perfect quick baking fix because they don’t require shaping dough or frosting (normally). You just whip up the batter and pour it in a pan–for this reason, I am bar obsessed. I also love bars because I feel like you can throw as much chocolate, sugar, and candy in them and they’ll always turn out scrumdiddly-yum-cious. I am for sure on my way to getting diabetes. Regardless, the POM brownies were a perfect solution. They required a little extra time compared to normal chocolate brownies because you have to make the POM syrup, but the extra 20 minutes was so worth it. The POM syrup made the brownies.

Yummm look at the marbling!

The brownies were uber-decadent and rich. The deep unsweetened chocolate flavor was really enhanced by the richness of the POM syrup. I wasn’t expecting to like these so much but they were so good. The POM syrup gets split in half and some poured on before baking, and then some after baking. The sugary syrup soaked down into the double chocolate brownies and makes for the most moist brownie I’ve ever had. The brownies themselves were the perfect texture, not too cakey, and not too fudgey. Besides being a rockin’ texture, the brownies also had a flavor kick from the pomegranate and the chocolate chips.

Thanks to Liz for being my brownie holder!

Gah brownies are always so much better with chocolate chips thrown in. The POM juice didn’t add an overwhelmingly fruity flavor, but you could definitely tell there was a little something extra in there. There was an added sweetness and tart flavor from the syrup, and it made a pretty, shiny design on the top of the brownies! I am a purist when it comes to chocolate (except when mixed with peanut butter or Fluff) and prefer to keep my fruit and chocolate desserts separate, but not for these brownies. I’m just going to be cliche here and say they were wonderful! If you’re making brownies and you go to the grocery to pick up stuff I suggest buying a small bottle of POM to go along with it. It’s an easy way to jazz up your dessert and you could even do it with boxed brownies too. Plus, POM is full of antioxidants so you can justify taking fork to the pan as soon as they come out of the oven!

Double Chocolate POM Brownies

From Chef POM Wonderful

POM SYRUP:

1 cup POM Wonderful 100% Pomegranate Juice

3/4 cup sugar

Combine juice and 3/4 cup of sugar in a small saucepan; bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer about 20 minutes until reduced to 1/2 cup, stirring frequently.

POM BROWNIES:

3 ounces unsweetened chocolate

1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter or margarine, softened

1 1/2 cups granulated sugar

3 large eggs

1 tablespoon vanilla

1 cup all-purpose flour

3/4 cup chopped almonds or walnuts (optional)