FOOD FRIDAY - BROWNIES

“Chocolate is the first luxury. It has so many things wrapped up in it: deliciousness in the moment, childhood memories, and that grin-inducing feeling of getting a reward for being good.” - Mariska Hargitay

Merry Christmas! As if you didn’t have enough rich food around at Christmas, here is a scrumptious ultra-decadent brownies recipe guaranteed to send your chocometer into the red zone…

Brownies
Ingredients
185g unsalted butter
185g good quality dark chocolate
85g plain flour
40g cocoa powder
50g white chocolate
50g milk chocolate
3 large eggs
275g golden caster sugar
Icing sugar for dusting

Method
Cut the unsalted butter into smallish cubes and tip into a medium bowl. Break the dark chocolate into small pieces and drop into the bowl. Fill a small saucepan about a quarter full with hot water, then sit the bowl on top so it rests on the rim of the pan, not touching the water. Put over a low heat until the butter and chocolate have melted, stirring occasionally to mix them. Now remove the bowl from the pan. Alternatively, cover the bowl loosely with cling film and put in the microwave for 2 minutes on high. Leave the melted chocolate mixture to cool to room temperature.

While you wait for the chocolate to cool, position a shelf in the middle of your oven and turn the fan-forced oven on to fan to 160˚C for 10 minutes to heat up. Using a shallow 20cm square tin, cut out a square of non-stick baking parchment to line the base.

Now tip the plain flour and the cocoa powder into a sieve held over a medium bowl, and tap and shake the sieve so they run through together and you get rid of any lumps. With a large sharp knife, chop 50g white chocolate and 50g milk chocolate into small chunks on a board.

Break 3 large eggs into a large bowl and tip in the golden caster sugar. With an electric mixer on maximum speed, whisk the eggs and sugar until they look thick and creamy, like a milk shake. This can take 3-8 minutes. You’ll know it’s ready when the mixture becomes really pale and about double its original volume. Lift out the beaters and shake them from side to side. If the mixture that runs off the beaters leaves a trail on the surface of the mixture in the bowl for a second or two, it’s ready.

Pour the cooled chocolate mixture into the egg mousse, and gently fold together with a rubber spatula. The idea is to mix them without knocking out the air, so be as gentle and slow as you like – you don’t want to undo all the work you did in the previous step.

Hold the sieve over the bowl of the cake mixture and resift the cocoa and flour mixture, shaking the sieve from side to side, to cover the top evenly. Gently fold in this powder using a figure of eight action. The mixture will look dry at first,, but keep going very gently until it looks fudgy. Stop just before you feel you should, as you don’t want to overdo this mixing. Finally, stir in the white and milk chocolate chunks until they’re dotted throughout.

Pour the mixture into the prepared tin, scraping every bit out of the bowl with the spatula. Gently ease the mixture into the corners of the tin and paddle the spatula from side to side across the top to level it. Put in the oven and set your timer for 25 minutes. When the buzzer goes, open the oven, pull the shelf out a bit and gently shake the tin. If the cake 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 the cake in the tin until completely cold, then lift out the cake with the parchment. Cut into quarters, then cut each quarter into four squares and dust with icing sugar. The brownies keep in an airtight container for a good two weeks and in the freezer for up to a month.

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