As long as I’ve been married, we’ve had this basic set of Lodge cast iron skillets, sitting in storage, sitting at the back of a cupboard, utterly ignored. I knew they were there, but I wasn’t really cooking and, hey, we had the cheap set of cookware Layne had purchased during courtship. You know, the kind with the nonstick crap flaking off into your food and being generally terrifying.

But it was that cookware that eventually led me to drag out the cast iron. One old dutch oven was becoming so awful, so impossible to cook with, I turned to friends, family, and the internet for favorite cookware.

Again and again, people brought up cast iron.

Which we have. At least in skillet form. So I indulged some money in a nice cast iron dutch oven and brought out those skillets. They look so folksy, the heating is remarkable, and I just get that awesome novelty of having cooked in cast iron.

Consider me having joined the cast iron cult.

Now, onto brownies.

I have been craving brownies for awhile now. I tried cake, and while it was yummy it was still not a brownie. So last night I gave in and whipped up some brownies, poured the batter into a cast iron skillet, and the result was tasty.

1/2 cup coconut oil, softened or even liquefied

1/4 cup cocoa powder

1 cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon orange extract

2 eggs, room temperature

3/4 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 salt

1/2 cup salted caramel baking chips (or any chips, but the salt… so good)

Mix oil and cocoa together. Add the extracts and set aside. Mix together sugar and eggs til nice and yellow and pretty. Now combine those with the chocolately oil stuff and mix well. Mix the flour and salt together, then mix with the rest until just blended.

Now, pour into an 8-inch skillet. Sprinkle baking chips on top. Bake for 30 minutes at 325 degrees.