Chocolate brownies are a very special treat. But they fall into the category of food that you should seldom eat based on their chocolate and sugar content. Moist and just a little bit gooey, they are what you expect when you think brownies. On the plus side, the inclusion of walnuts or pecans means you can almost justify the indulgence because nuts are good for you! The reality is they are delicious and that’s a good enough reason to make them.
There are so many brownie recipes out there, it makes it difficult to decide which one to make. This is one we have been using for years. To be honest, this recipe was always made by Ella. I didn’t start making brownies until she moved out of home, which was sad in itself but sadder in as much as I had to make my own brownies.
I recently tried several other brownie recipes, which turned out to be not nearly as good as this tried and trusted version. The others were either too cake like or, the other extreme, too gooey. This recipe is somewhere in between, which is just the way I like them. The great thing about gathering recipes, is they can come from anywhere. This one is from Your Little Book of Chocolate attached as a freebie to an edition of House & Garden magazine, in a year I can’t remember.
The nuts you use is up to you. Although walnuts and pecans work really well, we’ve substituted the nuts for frozen raspberries, which makes yet another version well worth trying. The only thing that can really go wrong when making brownies is overcooking them. They need to come out of the oven when they are just cooked. Any longer and you won’t get the gooeyness you associate with brownies.
Give them a go. You’ll be glad you did. Enjoy!
- 110 grams dark cooking chocolate
- 50 grams unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
- 75 grams plain flour
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- 2 eggs
- 125 grams caster sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 50 grams pecans or walnuts, roughly chopped
- Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Grease a 20 cm square baking tin and line with baking paper.
- Break the chocolate into pieces, place in a heatproof bowl and melt the chocolate over a pan of boiling water.
- When cooled a little, add the butter. Stir until the butter has melted and blended with the chocolate.
- Sift the flour with the baking powder.
- Beat the eggs together with the sugar and vanilla until fluffy and blend in the chocolate and butter mixture.
- Fold in the flour and then the roughly chopped nuts.
- Pour into the tin and bake for 20 - 25 minutes or until set around the edges but still springy in the middle .
- Allow to cool, then cut into squares. They will turn fudgey as they cool.
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