As requested by Mrs Shore, here is a recipe for chocolate brownies. These are seriously delicious and once you've made them you'll realise how AWFUL the shop bought variety is. I'm yet to discover anywhere which does anything even remotely close to these. I wouldn't make these too often though, they are really naughty and I dread to think how many calories each one has in it.
The chocolate I use (religiously) is Green and Black's Organic Dark 70%. This is possibly the best dark chocolate available so widely. For this recipe you'll need two 100g bars, which will leave you a little left over to snaffle secretly.
Another good ingredient is vanilla sugar. Put your caster sugar in an airtight container and bury 3 or 4 vanilla pods in it. After a week your sugar will be gorgeously perfumed. You can keep topping it up with more sugar, as the pods seem to have almost endless flavour. I've had the same ones for 2 years and they are still doing their stuff. This is great for baking, especially chocolate recipes which benefit enormously from the addition of vanilla. You can't really taste the vanilla but it seems to lift the chocolatey-ness to another level of yumminess. I also use it for sweetening my coffee or hot chocolate, but not tea. It does something odd to tea.
Ingredients
190g unsalted butter
190g dark chocolate
3 large eggs, preferably free range and organic
250g golden caster sugar
1/2 tbsp vanilla extract (if not using vanilla sugar)
110g plain flour
1/2 tsp salt
100g dark chocolate chips
100g milk or white chocolate chips
Baking tin measuring 23 x 23 x 5cm (9 x 9 x 2in)
Preheat oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas mark 4. Grease and line your brownie tin with baking parchment, making sure to line the sides as well. You'll be thankful for it later.
Melt the butter and chocolate together in a pan and set aside to cool a little. In a large bowl, beat the eggs then add the sugar and extract, if using. Add the chocolate mixture and combine thoroughly, then add the flour with salt and mix together. Finally add the chocolate chips and stir well until they are distributed evenly. Pour this mixture into the tin. I usually need a second pair of hands to hold the bowl whilst I scrape it out.
Bake for about 25 minutes. The top will go strangely pale, the colour of milky coffee and start to crack. I take them out after 25 minutes as they continue to cook outside the oven and you want them to be gooey in the middle.
Once cool enough to handle turn out the cake (here's where lining the sides is a big help) and cut into 16 pieces. Eat with a glass of cold milk or a cup of coffee.
Variations I think traditionally brownies have nuts in them, usually walnuts but I can't stand them and live with someone who hates all nuts so I had to come up with something different. Of course you could add any nut really; pecans, brazils, peanuts etc. You could also try some par-dried fruits, such as strawberries or even better, raspberries. These odd little things go like small pockets of jam within the brownie.
Melt the butter and chocolate together in a pan and set aside to cool a little. In a large bowl, beat the eggs then add the sugar and extract, if using. Add the chocolate mixture and combine thoroughly, then add the flour with salt and mix together. Finally add the chocolate chips and stir well until they are distributed evenly. Pour this mixture into the tin. I usually need a second pair of hands to hold the bowl whilst I scrape it out.
Bake for about 25 minutes. The top will go strangely pale, the colour of milky coffee and start to crack. I take them out after 25 minutes as they continue to cook outside the oven and you want them to be gooey in the middle.
Once cool enough to handle turn out the cake (here's where lining the sides is a big help) and cut into 16 pieces. Eat with a glass of cold milk or a cup of coffee.
Variations I think traditionally brownies have nuts in them, usually walnuts but I can't stand them and live with someone who hates all nuts so I had to come up with something different. Of course you could add any nut really; pecans, brazils, peanuts etc. You could also try some par-dried fruits, such as strawberries or even better, raspberries. These odd little things go like small pockets of jam within the brownie.
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