Chocolate Mint Brownie Dessert

In honor of St. Patty’s Day!

How do I describe St. Pat’s Day at UMR (Univ. of MO.-Rolla) where my husband went to college and where I showed up for every St. Patrick’s day to help celebrate the holiday.

Well, green food from the frat house, green mashed potatoes, milk, beer, all the guys sporting beards (or trying to – took my husband all year to grow one) and helping to build (or add the paper) to the floats that were all mechanical and unbelievable; but what would you expect from an engineering school.

So, when bunco rolled around this month and the hostess said “think green” for St. Patrick’s Day my first thought goes back to Rolla and where we spent the first year of our married life; and I have to say, living next door to the frat house was fun, and I remember a few guys showing up all the time for food; I guess I have always liked feeding people.

I signed up for dessert for bunco for March and thinking of something green was going to be a challenge because it needed to be a frozen dessert since I wasn’t getting back in town until the day of bunco.

This dessert is so easy that I’m almost embarrassed to post it, but why not, and if you don’t want to make the brownies, just substitute a chocolate wafer cookie.

This recipe using chocolate shell (I’ve made from scratch before but not this time.) is so much fun (if you can say that about a recipe). The liquid chocolate immediately turn to a smooth shell when quickly poured onto the top of the frozen dessert and quickly gets sprinkled with some chopped pistachios and Andes mint pieces. Pop it in the freezer and you will have a beautiful Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream dessert. (Afterthought — after using the magic shell it really hardened like it was suppose to on the top of the ice cream dessert and so it was a little hard to cut without cracking. I may use Hershey’s hot fudge sauce the next time – thick and it will stay softer to cut after frozen.) But, the chocolate shell looked so smooth on top and as you can see from the photos, it didn’t crack that bad.

BLAST FROM THE PAST: Looking for a new breakfast treat? Try my Eggs Rothko, beautiful colors and great taste.

The way it was served at bunco last week.

Using any boxed brownie mix, bake in the springform pan and slice or divide the batter in half and bake twice (That’s what I did because I didn’t want to try and split it evenly.) (OR, see notes on easier method.)

On the first layer of baked brown, top with half of the mint chocolate chip ice cream.

Have your Andes mint chips and pistachios ready to sprinkle because the chocolate shell will harden almost immediately.

Sprinkle some of the chopped pistachios and the Andes mint pieces on top of the first layer of ice cream.

Add another layer of brownie and then the rest of the ice cream.

Smooth the ice cream to cover entire pan.

You kind of need two sets of hands for this. Squirt on the Magic Shell and quickly sprinkle with Andes Mint bits and chopped pistachios. (See my notes below or maybe a better way to make the top.)

Decorate with swirls of whipped cream, cut and enjoy.