Today is the first day of my Summer. Ahead lies long stretch of four months until my final year at university – not at all daunting…! In lieu of a month of constant revision (and regaining mobility of my right arm from writing so much!), I would like to catch up on my somewhat neglected blog with a beautiful brownie recipe: an optimistic beginning to hopefully a good summer ahead. This a foolproof recipe that is guaranteed to yield amazing results!
Ingredients:
- 275g caster sugar
- 185g unsalted butter
- 85g plain flour
- 3 large eggs
(and the exciting bit:)
- 185g good dark chocolate
- 50g white chocolate
- 50g milk chocolate
- 40g cocoa powder
Method:
- Cut the butter into small cubes and break up the dark chocolate into small pieces. Tip both into a medium sized bowl. Fill a saucepan with water so it does not touch the bottom of the bowl when they are stack on top of each other. Heat the water on a low simmering heat. Stir the butter and chocolate occasionally as they melt into one another. Remove bowl from the pan and leave the mixture to cool to room temperature.
- Meanwhile, prepare your owven by turning it to gas mark 4/180C/160C, and line a shallow 20cm tin with greaseproof paper (I used my round loose-bottomed cake tins but normal people who can take things out of tins competently probably use square tins!).
- Next, sieve out the flour and cocoa powder together into a fresh bowl.
- Then chop the white and milk chocolate into chunks – ready for a later stage.
- With a third bowl, whisk the three eggs and caster sugar together with an electric mixer on the highest setting. Stop when they look like a thick, creamy milkshake. This will take no longer than 8 minutes but may be faster and took no more than 3 minutes depending how pwerful the whisk. The mixture will be double its original size, pale and creamy. Be careful not to overdo it as you will risk knocking the air out.
- Pour in the cooled chocolate and butter mixture and gently fold in with a figure-of-8 motion, taking great care not to knock air out. Make sure to reach the sides of the bowl. The resulting mixture will be a dappled brown colour. Do not rush this stage: be slow and gentle.
- Resieve the cocoa and flour over this mixture so it covers the whole thing evenly. Do the same gentle folding as before, making sure to eradicate pockets of the dry ingredients. At first, the mixture will look disheartening and dusty (but you’re on the right track!). In the end, it will be fudgy mixture. Again, do not overdo this and stop before you think you should.
- Gently stir in the white and milk chunks of chocolate.
- Pour the mixture into the prepared tin, gently easing it into all areas of the tin and leveling it to a smooth level. Put into the oven for 25 minutes. At the end of this time, check the middle does not wobble. If so, bake anouther 5 minutes. There should be a parpery crust and the sides will have moved away from the tin’s edges.
- Leave to cool and cut into squares, triangles or even dodecahedrons should you desire.
- Crucially, enjoy!
Adventures of Captain Hetty 