I have tried other brownie recipes (normally when I get a new recipe book) but nothing matches up to these. They are chewy, gooey with a crispy top, have a really rich chocolate flavour and take hardly any time to make (and hardly any mess too- just a pan to clean- no bowls or anything).
They are based on a recipe from a really old recipe book called “Greatest Ever Cookies” which I got from one of those discount book shops. I can never find it on amazon or anything like that.
I use it as a basis for any brownie recipe- add in anything you fancy.
Ingredients:
100g butter/ Pure spread
175g caster sugar
30g dark brown soft sugar
120g dark chocolate
1 tbs golden syrup
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
100g plain flour
25g cocoa powder
1/2 tsp baking powder
Line a brownie pan with baking paper, and preheat the oven to 180C.
In a medium saucepan melt together the butter, chocolate, sugars and golden syrup. Leave to cool for a few minutes.
Weigh out the flour, cocoa and baking powder so it is ready (I put it in a cup).
Beat in the eggs and the extract (quickly as you do not want the eggs to scramble), then gently fold in the flour mixture.
If you are using any add- ins then add them in now.
Pour into the brownie pan and bake for 20-25 mins- they will have risen a tiny amount and the top will look shiny and a little cracked. They will be soft when you take them out of the oven, but they will firm up as they cool.
Leave them to cool completely before slicing, otherwise they are really hard to cut. Then try not to eat them all at once!
See how gooey they are in the middle- Heaven!
Variations that I have tried:
Double chocolate– add some chocolate chips into the mix/ sprinkle chunks of chocolate over the mix in the pan.
Mint chocolate– swap the vanilla for peppermint extract, and / or add some chopped minty chocolate.
Chocolate cherry– soak some dried cherries in warm water (this plumps them up a bit) before adding to the mixture.
Ginger and orange chocolate– Use orange extract and add some chopped crystallised ginger, and 1/2 tsp ginger/cinnamon.
White chocolate and raspberry– Mix in some white chocolate chips and sprinkle with frozen crushed raspberries.
Chocolate pecan– mix in some chopped pecans.
Coconut chocolate– take out some of the mixture and mix with dessicated coconut, swap the vanilla for coconut extract, then pour the coconut mix on top of the normal mix.
I keep meaning to try out a vegan version with flax eggs instead, but have not had the courage yet. If anyone tries it out, let me know!
Which would be your favourite brownie flavour?
Also I got an email today saying that a shoe designer (Patrick Cox?) has launched a cupcake book, called Cox Cookies and Cake , and they are having a competition to win a signed copy of the book, here. If you fancy it 🙂
PS I would love it if you would “like” me on facebook- there is a link on my home-page now. Cheers 🙂
I used one packet of gingerbread porridge, more spices, a big dollop of pumpkin puree and 1/2 cup coconut milk and baked for 25 mins. It filled 2 ramekins, and I had them both. Yum! I will be having this again for a weekend breakfast 🙂
A present wrapped in a bow, and a snowman.
A bauble (with glitter!!!).
We used a knife to create stitching detail on the bow- how clever.
I think the snowman is my favourite- so cute.
We also made a cheeky elf and a Father Christmas.
All of them together. It was such a relaxing way to spend Sunday morning/ lunchtime. There were only 6 of us, so we all sat around a big table. Rolling out the icing, colouring some of it, cutting it out…. it is all just really enjoyable.
They never look good in my photos but trust me it was all about the taste!
We shared one this afternoon with some Teapigs chai. Mmmmm.
It will look better once it is covered in marzipan 🙂 Tomorrow I am going on a Christmas cupcake decorating course so I am hoping to have some good ideas for how to decorate the cakes. Other than that I have been relaxing- I had a busy week and somehow did 4 runs (Saturday- 4, Sunday- 8, Monday-5, Wednesday 4) plus aerobics and pump, and normally I would have had another rest day. I was meant to be going out to dinner after work yesterday, but I left work late (super busy) and had such an awful headache- my eyes were hurting as I was driving home looking at all the headlights, so I skipped that in favour of an evening on the sofa!
Little gingerbread men:
And some hearts and stars:
I got some writing icing from Sainsbury’s and had fun drawing on them, but the thing is it is quite sticky- a bit worried it is all going to peel off as I have currently wrapped them in clingfilm.
Then I used my new sugarflair colours to make coloured icing and cut out little gingerbread men;
Which went on top of the cakes alongside the fudge icing from 
Look at the cute case from Paperchase too:
They have little snowmen and gingerbread men and things like that 🙂
Cooked in a pan gently (that seems to be the key)
Tasty anyway.
In the daylight! Yummy alpro chocolate milk.
Toast (sourdough wholewheat, although it tastes nice when not toasted) with red pepper hummus and tangerines. I also had some tea (cinnamon tea from Whitards although I don’t think they make it any more) and an 
