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:
- Preheat your oven 180C / 170CFan.
- Line a 20cm square cake tin.
- Melt butter and dark chocolate in a bowl above a saucepan of barely simmering water.
- Whilst the chocolate and butter are melting, whisk eggs, sugar and vanilla until trebled in volume.
- Pour in the chocolate mixture and continue to whisk until fully combined.
- Then gently fold in flour, cocoa, walnuts and white chocolate.
- 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.
- Leave to cool completely in the tin, once cool cut into roughly 32 triangles.
- Dust with icing sugar and serve.
Note: These brownies keep for over a week if stored in an airtight container in a cool place.