Food Channel Finds is our way of bringing information and opinion on some of the latest products to hit the market. These might be interesting food items seen as we walk a trade show, on a grocery shelf, at a food event, or often, from press releases enticing us to put them to the test to see how they deliver.

With the holidays approaching, we’ve been in a baking mode. We recently gave Mizkan America’s Rio Luna™ brand of Organic Jalapeños a spin in the kitchen—specifically in some homemade chocolate brownies.

Rio Luna Organic Diced Jalapeños. Photo: Rio Luna.

Mizkan is the world’s largest producer of green chiles and the United States’ largest producer of jalapeños. The products are certified USDA Organic. Jalapeños are great for adding heat and spice to a variety of appetizers, sides and entrées, but the juxtaposition of hot and sweet in desserts is really, well, hot right how, so we went that route.

Hot and Straightforward

We used a straightforward brownie recipe with vegetable oil, sugar, eggs, vanilla, flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, salt and, of course, jalapeños.

The only difference from a traditional recipe is you whisk the oil, sugar, eggs and peppers together first, combine the other ingredients in a separate bowl then fold into the pepper mixture.

Baking time was a little over 15 minutes and we had an 8-by-8-inch pan of brownies. If you love jalapeños, the flavor tones are rich, hot and spicy—a perfect complement to chocolate.

Chef Gail sprinkles powdered sugar.

You’ll want to consider the taste profile you desire in terms of quantity of peppers used. We puréed the canned, diced jalapeños and typically if we’re looking to enhance the chocolate flavor a bit, we’ll use chocolate syrup. But with the purée, that would make your consistency too soft. Since we didn’t use additional chocolate enhancers, the jalapeño is more dominant.

As Hot As You Want

If you prefer a more equalized flavor combination, I’d drop the pepper quantity by a tablespoon or so. That will bring the chocolate flavoring out more, without drying the brownie. However, if you want that spicy jalapeño flavor a bit more dominant, use the recipe as-is.

Since we also had a jar of the sliced Rio Luna Jalapeños, I took those home to try with beef and cheese nachos. They were a perfect hot-and-spicy addition, with some sour cream and chives!

Jalapeño Brownies with Rio Luna Organic Peppers.

Get the full recipe here.