So, I don’t often brag about my cooking, but these brownies (inspired by Jamie Oliver) are as he’d say ‘bloomin’ brilliant. We even sold them at the pub, and they sold like hot cakes (sorry, had to say it!) And, if you secretly enjoy the feeling of feeling a little sick from over-indulgence and are prepared to forget about the calories, then these brownies could well be considered as heaven on a plate.
Ingredients:
- 250 g unsalted butter
- 150 g ‘brown chocolate’ (milk/dark/plain – your choice!)
- 100 g cocoa powder (preferably Bourneville)
- 65 g plain flour
- 1 heaped tsp baking powder
- 360 g caster sugar
- 4 eggs
- 25ml of cointreau (or juice and zest of half an orange)
The ‘fun’ extras (all optional of course):
- 200g marshmallows
- 2 Fudge Sticks
- A few chunks of chocolate, roughly chopped
- 200g of any nuts, roughly chopped
- 200g dried fruits
- Any chocolate you have lying around – just chop it up and throw it in!
So let’s talk recipe. Whack the oven up to 180C and melt the butter and chocolate – recipes usually say to do this over a low heat on the hob, but I’m too impatient and don’t particularly like washing up so I do it all in the microwave. Just be careful not to burn the chocolate! When the chocolatey buttery mixture is smoothly melted, add the sugar and stir. Add the dry ingredients and cointreau and stir some more – the mixture will begin to get quite thick but keep going until it’s thoroughly blended.
Add in the dry ingredients
Silky deliciousness
Add the eggs, stirring at the same time as the mixture will still be slightly hot so you don’t want the eggs cooking if not mixed in quickly enough. The mixture will look a little thick, and almost like thick brown scrambled egg to start with but do make sure you add all the eggs as you’ll be left with a perfectly smooth, silky and delicious brownie mixture.
Pop into a well greased (and preferably parchment papered) baking tin and pop into the oven for 20 minutes.
Time to have some fun with those optional extras!
While you wait, roughly chop up all your optional extras. In this recipe, I chose marshmallows, fudge and milk chocolate. Put these in after 20 minutes of the brownie being in the oven and allow to cook for another 10 minutes.
Take out the oven and leave to cool for 30 minutes before cutting into delectable chunks.
I warn you, it’s good and you WILL feel sick 😉
