Almond Joy Brownies

Growing up in southwest Iowa, the region produced some ferocious lightning and thunder storms. Oft times the thunder was so loud, the windows would rattle. These storms scared me, especially if I were trying to sprint through the last few houses of my paper route as one would come on. When I was young, my dad told me thunder was the result of two storm clouds bumping into each other. I think he wanted me to understand it was nothing to be afraid of. Unfortunately, Dad never cleared up the inaccurate meteorology lesson. I’ll never forget hearing the “truth” into my adulthood and researching for myself the facts. I was devastated at my ignorance and had to quickly set my children straight, before they imparted their knowledge in the school classrooms.
Parents sometimes tell their kids things to appease the curiosity or quiet them.
As with Almond Joys- some parents convince kids that they won’t like nuts and coconut- leaving all those candies for the grown-ups. I think I must have been one of those parents; those were always the candies placed on “my” counter after trick-or-treating. I’m a big fan of the flavor combination, and was inspired by a neighbor down the road encouraging me to add them to my brownie repertoire. And so I did:

Almond Joy Brownies

Make a pan of brownies as outlined here.
For the 12x17 size, spread on 1 and ½ cans of chocolate frosting. Cut up 40+ Almond Joys (snack size). Gently press into the wet frosting.
Melt 3 Hershey bars (1.55oz.size) in a quart size Ziploc freezer strength bag. Clip a small hole in the corner and drizzle onto Almond Joy layer.
Immediately sprinkle 1 cup of toasted coconut and a few handfuls of toasted almond slices onto the wet chocolate.
Let set. Cut. Share.

Okay-this is my last official brownie recipe. Now your own creativity can take over and you can develop more of your own. These make nice friend, neighbor, and co-worker gifts at the holidays, birthdays, etc.
And, in case you haven’t already googled it, thunder is a loud, explosive, resounding noise produced by the explosive expansion of air heated by a lightning discharge. However, Aristotle, the Greek philosopher started the rumor of it being colliding clouds.