My ultimate chocolate brownies recipe and variations
I love chocolate. Cakes biscuits, confectionery. If it’s chocolate I’m there (hence me being on a diet!). I can bake cakes, but chocolate brownies are so much easier to make. And they’re versatile because they can be eaten as dessert, warmed with ice cream or cream. Or eaten cold as a treat or part of afternoon tea. Or even broken up and swirled through ice cream, or used as a base for gooey chocolate trifle.
There’s so many recipes out there. The one I always used to use is slightly more healthy and replaces the butter with prune puree. It’s delicious and gooey, but I hate the faff of de=stoning and pureeing prunes.
My new ultimate chocolate brownies aren’t healthy, but they taste delicious with a crusty topping, and a fudgy inside. Usually they get demolished quickly in our small household, while a larger cake sits around for days, then going to waste.
Top tips for making brownies
1, Anyone can make them. They’re pretty failsafe, compared with cakes which in my experience can be dry on the edges but not cooked in the centre. Brownies are always good.
2, Brownies are better if they’re a little less cooked in the middle. Remember they will harden a bit as they cool.
3, Your mix needs to be wet to get the fudginess. The drier the mix, the more cake like your brownies. The wetter the mix, the more gooey inside.
Ingredients
Makes 9, 12 or 16 depending on size you cut.
Prep: 10 mins, Cook: 35 mins
200g chocolate – if you want really rich use good dark chocolate, but I tend to use a mix of milk and dark
200g butter
3 large eggs
1 egg yolk
250g caster sugar
75g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
To make:
1, Preheat oven to 180C or 160C fan
2, Melt chocolate and butter together until melted and mixed. I use a microwave, but over a bain marie works fine too. Leave to cool a little.
3, in a different bowl, beat the eggs, yolk and sugar until pale and frothy. It will increase in size.
4, Add the melted butter and chocolate mix, and gently mix in. Then add the flour and baking powder, and fold in until just mixed.
5, Pour into a pre-greased, lined square cake tin.
6, Bake for up to 35 minutes until hard on top and just set in the middle. Either cut and serve, or cool in the tin until ready to eat.
These chocolate brownies can be kept in an airtight container for up to a week. If you have any leftovers (really?!) you can freeze them in a single layer or between greaseproof paper. Just defrost them individually a few hours before you want to eat them. They won’t have quite the same consistency, but they’ll still have the same chocolatey taste.
Variations
If you want to try some different flavours, why not try these variations. Just add a handful or two to the mix.
Raspberries
1 tsp vanilla extract
Cherries (de-stoned)
Walnuts, halved
Drizzle the top with melted white chocolate
Fudge chunks
Marshmallows
Pear chunks (fresh or dried)
Orange juice and zest (or a dash of Cointreau)
Salted pretzels, broken up
Are you a baking fan? How do you make your chocolate brownies?
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