Peppermint Brownies

I thought I was done baking after the french toast I had made this morning, so I decided to clean my husbands office, rearrange the computer, move the tv to act as a double moniter, and it took me about 45 minutes to untangle cords!  So after all that, I made a egg nog latte..so good. I don't know what I would do with out my espresso maker. Then I really wanted those peppermint brownies from Starbucks.
I tried to curb the craving by cleaning the kitchen, and scrubbing the oven. I searched on Pinterest on how to clean an oven. Long behold, baking soda and hydrogen proxide did just the trick. It was sparkling clean, and I could see through the window in just 30 minutes.
But it didn't help...I still wanted those brownies. I gave in.

ULTIMATE FUDGY BROWNIES
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup coconut oil
3 tablespoons unsweeted cocoa powder
1-1/4 cups sugar
3 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup all purpose flour

Optional: Chop 1/3 cup peppermint candies and 1 cup white chocolate chips. Top brownies when they firs come out of the oven.

1. Adjust an oven rack to the middle position to 350 degrees. Line a 8- inch square pan (I used an 11 by 7-inch pan, since I couldn't find my square one) with a foil sling and grease the foil. Melt the chocolate, coconut oil and cocoa powder together in the mircowave, stirring often (every 30 seconds), 1 to 3 minutes. Let the mixture cool slightly.

2. In a large bowl, whisk the sugar, vanilla, eggs, vanilla and salt together. Whisk in the melted chocolate mixture until combined. Stir in the flour until JUST incorporated.

3. Scrape the batter into prepared pan and smooth top. Bake brownies until a toothpick inserted into center comes out with just a few moist crumbs attached, 35 to 40 minutes.

4. Immediatly after taking brownies out of the oven sprinkle white chocolate and peppermint candies over the top.

5. Let brownies cool completely in pan to set up,about 2 hours. Remove brownies from pan using the foil, cut into sqaures and serve.

*adapted from "America's Test Kitchen 'The Baking Book' "