Good Monday Afternoon!
Remember that baking ban I was on? Yeah well that sorta went down the loo this weekend. On Friday After making custard squares and a vanilla three layer birthday cake my dear brother asked me to make him a chocolate brownie to take to his mates house for their boys (pronounced boyce by the boys) night . Since I obviously hadn't spend enough time strapped to the hand beater already I agreed and whipped up the trusty, delicious and positively wicked Cara's wicked chocolate brownie.
I got this recipe off one of my best friends, Cara, quite a few years ago now. This is the best brownie recipe I have ever found and I have stayed true to it all this time and have never made a different recipe. I made it so frequently that it was permanently engrained into my brain and so whenever someone asked me for a good brownie recipe I could recite this one off to them instantly.
The trick with brownie is to undercook them. That way they are guaranteed to be gooey in the centre. Originally this recipe said an hour at 150, then I shortened that to 50 minutes and then this time I shortened it again to 45 minutes to achieve optimum gooeyness. To make these even more decadent I decided for the first time to try out icing the brownie once it had completely cooled. I used a simple chocolate buttercream that had plenty of cocoa to balance out the sweetness. The best type of brownie is one that you only need to have a single piece of before being totally chocolated out!
Considering the box that I sent it away came out completely empty I am assuming the brownie went down rather well.
This recipe is really easy to make, just make sure you cream the butter and sugar really well as well as beating the eggs enough so that the volume about doubles.
Cara's Wicked Chocolate Brownie
Fills a 17x28cm tin rather nicely
200g butter, softened
1 1/2 cups white sugar
3 eggs
1 cup cocoa
1/2 cup plain flour
1 teaspoon vanilla
150g chocolate chunks (Dark chocolate works the best - you can put more chocolate in if you like - I recommend it).
Preheat the oven to 150 degrees on bake.
Cream the butter and sugar until light in colour.
Beat in the vanilla and eggs one at a time. After the last egg has been added keep beating for another few minutes to make sure that the maximum volume has been achieved.
Mix in the cocoa and beat until evenly mixed.
Add in the flour, beat until evenly mixed.
Stir in the chocolate melts or chunks.
Line a baking tray with baking paper and spoon in the mixture. Spread the mixture out so that all four corners are filled.
Bake for 45 minutes, a skewer should come out still gooey.
Leave to cool completely before dusting with icing sugar or icing with chocolate.
To make the chocolate icing, cream together 50g softened butter with around 2 cups of icing sugar and 1/2 cup of cocoa, a splash of vanilla and a few drops of milk (if it is too thick). I didn't actually weigh anything out when I made the icing, so this is just an estimate of what I put in. I like my chocolate icings to be really rich and chocolatey which is why so much cocoa was put in.
Using a nice big knife, slice the brownie into pieces and brace yourself for all the friends you are about to make :)
Have a great day!
I know I am!
Sophie