It’s been a while since my last post – jury duty, sickness bugs, catching up on work, trying to document last year in a photobook and life in general has come in the way… I have been baking though so here’s the first attempt at catching up!
I’m always on the lookout for the ultimate brownie recipe so when I found one called “Best-ever brownies” I had to try it. We had been invited to a BBQ last weekend so I decided to make these to bring along. It turned out to be the wettest BBQ I have ever been to, the rain was lashing down the whole time, but thanks to a gazebo over the barbecues our host managed to cook up some fabulous food despite of the rain.
My youngest woke up earlier as usual (5.30 am – yawn!) so I took the opportunity to make the brownies, with a little help from him, while the rest of the family was sleeping. By nine o’clock the kitchen was smelling heavenly from freshly baked brownies!
I found the recipe on the BBC Good Food website and have more or less stuck to it. I did add a pinch of salt though, as I think that brings out the chocolate flavour more, and only used white chocolate for the chocolate chunks instead of a combination of white and milk as the recipe called for.
I almost forgot to to add the them though, I had just put the tin in the oven when L pointed to the side where the chopping board with the white chocolate was sitting, so quickly had to take it out of the oven and add them.
The result was delicious! I’m not sure if they are the ultimate and best-ever brownies I have ever tasted, but they are definitely up there and I’ll be making them again.
The instructions for the method on the BBC website were quite detailed so I have shortened them considerably here. If you have never made brownies before though, or is new to baking, it may be worth having a peak at them to pick up a few good techniques.
Ingredients
- 185g unsalted butter
- 185g best dark chocolate
- 85g plain flour
- 40g cocoa powder
- 100g white chocolate
- 3 large eggs
- 275g golden caster sugar
- pinch of salt
METHOD
- Turn the oven on to 180C. Grease and/or line the cake tin.
- Cut the butter into smallish cubes and break the dark chocolate into small pieces and put into a bowl. Melt over a pan of simmering water, or in the microwave. Leave to cool to room temperature.
- Chop the white chocolate into nice size chunks.
- Whisk the eggs and sugar until thick and creamy.
- Pour the cooled chocolate mixture over the eggy mousse, then gently fold together.
- Sieve the flour and cocoa powder into the mixture and gently fold in. Finally, stir in the white and milk chocolate chunks until they’re dotted throughout.
- Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and bake for 25 minutes. Check to see if done by pulling the shelf out a bit and gently shake the tin. If the brownie wobbles in the middle, it’s not quite done, so slide it back in and bake for another 5 minutes until the top has a shiny, papery crust and the sides are just beginning to come away from the tin. Take out of the oven.
- Leave to cool in the tin, then cut into squares or triangles.
- Enjoy!
I also made some delicious Guinness and raspberry brownies a few weeks ago which I brought along to a girly night in with some great friends. The Guinness gave them an earthy note and the raspberries added a fresh fruity tang which went perfectly with the rich chocolate brownie. They could possibly have done with a couple of more minutes in the oven, but I was running short of time and I hate cakey overcooked brownies and prefer them to be gooey and slightly undercooked, which is how they ended up – possibly not to everyones taste, but they still seemed to go down a treat!
Unfortunately my camera had mysteriously disappeared when I was going to take a picture of them, only to be found days later underneath a book case (go figure?!), so you are just going to have to trust me when I say they looked as good as they tasted 😉
I had got the recipe from Jamie Oliver’s Jamie magazine, which was doing a baking special issue. Here’s the photo of the brownies from the cover: http://www.jamieoliver.com/news/jamie-s-spring-baking-special
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