There are three words to bear in mind when baking brownies: squidgy, chocolatey, and squidgy.
Brownies shouldn't be altogether cakey or dry or spongey; they should be delectably squidgy in the middle and a little crispy on top.
Without being too modest, my brownies are my sweet speciality; I get requests from people to make them. My recipe is my own and has, up until now, been a bit guarded. It's cobbled together from two separate recipes, with a couple of twists of my own added, but it's nothing fancy and is easy to follow.
Ingredients to make one pan (about 16 large brownies or 32 small squares):
200g of dark chocolate (either 70 or 80% cocoa)
85g of plain flour (to make gluten-free use GF plain flour)
40g of good quality cocoa powder (I always use Green & Blacks)
285g of golden caster sugar
3 whole eggs
200g of unsalted butter, softened
100g of milk chocolate
100g of white chocolate
1 tablespoon of vegetable oil
Firstly snap the dark chocolate into chunks and melt in a glass bowl over a pan of boiling water with the butter, cut into cubes. Stir occasionally with a spatula until there's no more lumps. Remove from the heat, stir in the vegetable oil, and set aside to cool.
Preheat the oven to 180c/160c fan and line a brownie pan (or a rectangular baking tray which is about 1 inch deep) with grease-proof paper. Leave a couple of centimetres of grease-proof paper sticking up around the edge of the pan so you can easily lift the brownies out later.
Roughly chop the milk and white chocolate into chunks; not too small as they'll melt into the brownies and you need them to remain as chunks, about 1/2cm square is ideal.
Whisk together the sugar and eggs until the mixture is pale and fluffy, then fold in the cooled chocolate and butter with a spatula. Then fold in the flour and cocoa powder; you don't need to sieve (this recipe is quite robust and not in the least bit delicate!). At this point the mixture will look a bit rubbish; it'll appear dry and lumpy but keep on folding until it's chocolatey and thick. Finally fold in the chocolate chunks until they're combined with the rest of the mixture.
Tip the mixture into the lined pan and push around with a spatula to make sure it's in all the corners. Bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes; the brownies should be papery on top and still jiggle in the middle when you gently shake the pan from side to side. You can push a knife into the brownie and test if it comes out clean, but be wary as you might push it through a chocolate chunk!
Leave the brownies in the pan to cool completely out of the oven before lifting out and cutting into squares.
No comments:
Post a Comment