I’ve had a couple of dinner parties lately mid-week and I’ve found that the best way to stay stress free is to do as much preparation in advance as possible, consequently, last Sunday afternoon, when I returned home from sailing, I made brownies.  They didn’t take long to make and were prepared and cooked in under an hour and made enough to feed 16 people for pudding comfortably.

I have read a lot of recipes that say you must use the very best chocolate when making brownies, however, I have found the cheap and cheerful chocolate from supermarket works really well and as such I’m disinclined to splash out on ridiculously expensive chocolate.  I would recommend trying different types of chocolate to see what works best for you and what you prefer.  My personal preference is anything with 70% or more cocoa.

What makes these brownies stand apart from others that I have made is that they are wonderfully gooey in the middle whilst retaining a slight crust. They are a perfect amount of decadence to finish off a meal.  I tend serve with a mixture of summer berries and either ice cream or soured cream depending on what I have available, but they are also excellent on their own.

Chocolate Brownies (makes 32)

Ingredients:

• 200g dark chocolate
• 200g butter
• 3 large eggs
• 200g granulated sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• 50g white chocolate (roughly chopped)
• 50g walnuts (roughly chopped)
• 50g cocoa powder (sifted)
• 85g plain flour (sifted)

Steps:

1. Preheat your oven 180C / 170CFan.
2. Line a 20cm square cake tin.
3. Melt butter and dark chocolate in a bowl above a saucepan of barely simmering water.
4. Whilst the chocolate and butter are melting, whisk eggs, sugar and vanilla until trebled in volume.
5. Pour in the chocolate mixture and continue to whisk until fully combined.
6. Then gently fold in flour, cocoa, walnuts and white chocolate.
7. Pour into the pre-prepared tin and bake in oven for 20-25 mins. Remove the brownies from the oven when they have a slight wobble but a firm crust.
8. Leave to cool completely in the tin, once cool cut into roughly 32 triangles.
9. Dust with icing sugar and serve.

Note:  These brownies keep for over a week if stored in an airtight container in a cool place.