What do you do when your son asks for brownies for his seventh birthday, and it is his birthday already, and you have no bar chocolate in the house and a strong disinclination to go to the store because you just got back from the baseball game and you have about 30 minutes to make these brownies before dinner?

Not like this has actually happened to anyone I know. But for instance.

In this case, what you do is search the Internet for brownies you can make with plain old cocoa powder from your pantry. You are not really hoping for gourmet here -- merely decent should fulfill the 7-year-old's wishes -- but you luck out.

Alice Medrich has a great recipe on Epicurious that, I kid you not, tastes like the richest made-from-dark-chocolate brownie you've come across. It mixes up very quickly, and pleases adults and birthday boys alike.

Here's the recipe.

Photo by me