Brownies

A few nights ago I was craving brownies. Simple, chocolatey brownies. This is a recipe I found in the Leith’s Techniques Bible, but I switched it up a bit. It’s very easy, and very quick. You don’t even need an electric mixer. I just used a whisk and spatula and voila!

For the Brownies:

• 110g salted butter
• 140g dark chocolate, chopped
• 170g castor sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 tsp of vanilla essence
• 55g plain flour
• 1/2 tsp of baking powder
• 30g cocoa powder

In a sauce pan melt the butter and chocolate on low heat. Be sure to keep stirring it since the chocolate may burn at the bottom of the pan.

Once the butter and chocolate have completely melted, add in the sugar. While it’s on the gas give it a few turns till everything is incorporated, and then take it off the heat and leave to cool.

In a separate bowl, sift the cocoa powder, flour and baking powder.

Once the chocolate mixture has cooled completely, break in the eggs and add the vanilla essence. Make sure that the mixture is cool or else the eggs will cook. Stir in the eggs properly.

Little by little fold in the dry ingredients, until completely incorporated.

The original recipe asked for walnuts to be chopped up and folded into the batter. I however don’t like walnuts too much so just chopped some up and dropped onto the top. The baking pan I prepared with butter and flour and then simply poured the batter in.

I preheated the oven to 180C about 10 minutes before I thought I was going to put the tray in. The brownies need to be just done, a little gooey when you poke a skewer in. This should take about 30-35 minutes.

Once out of the oven leave it to cool for 20 minutes to half an hour.

Once cooled, cut the brownies into squares.

I topped it with a bit of ganache and some sprinkles. But you can leave them plain as well.