Simple Chocolate Brownie Recipe

Dense, moist, pure chocolate sensation, really good chocolate brownies are every chocoholic’s idea of bliss on a summer picnic or a rainy winter’s afternoon. Serve them warm with a blob of creamy vanilla ice cream for Sunday lunch and wow your family and guests, or stash them away as a secret supply of indulgence and share them with the chosen few, whenever you need a chocolate fix with a cup of coffee.

Of course the chocolatiness depends on the chocolate you use. For best results use a dark 70% chocolate which has the intensity of flavour but is still sweet enough to give the melty, chewy texture a true chocolate brownie should have. This recipe is the basic recipe to which you can add walnuts, pecan nuts, chocolate chips or dried berries to your own taste.

Chocolate Brownie Recipe

Ingredients
250g / 8oz dark chocolate
250g / 8oz butter
300g / 10 oz golden caster sugar
3 large eggs plus one extra yolk
60g / 2oz flour
60g / 2oz cocoa powder
½ teaspoon baking powder
pinch salt

Preheat the oven to 180C / 350F.

Grease a 23x23cm / 9x9inch non-stick baking tin and line the bottom with baking paper.

Cream butter and sugar together until white, fluffy and creamy, either by hand or in the food processor.

Break the chocolate into pieces and melt all except for 50g of it in a bowl suspended over a pan of simmering water. Remove from the heat as soon as it has melted. Chop the remaining 50g of chocolate into small chunks.

Beat the eggs into a small bowl and then beat gradually into the butter and sugar mix. Stir in the melted chocolate and chocolate chunks with a metal spoon.

Sift together flour, baking powder, cocoa and salt then fold in carefully to the batter with the metal spoon.

Turn mixture into the cake tin, smooth the top and bake for about 30 minutes.

It is important not to overcook brownies or they will be dry and lose that moist, chewy texture that is their hallmark. So check after 25 minutes. The top should have risen but it will appear softer in the middle. Test with a skewer in the middle. It should come out a bit sticky but not with liquid raw mix on it. If it does, put back in for another 3 minutes and check again. What you don’t want is for the skewer to come out clean, as the brownies will be overdone.

If you want to add nuts or any other bits and pieces, add them to the mixture immediately after you have stirred in the melted chocolate.

Feeling like a chocolate brownie with your coffee, but you’re all out of ingredients? Visit Belle and Jerome Beeston restaurant in Nottingham for one of their luscious teatime treats and pastries served all day.