soreI have now run out of flapjacks. So Alexa & I are baking brownies. Two lots, one made with bitter chocolate, brown sugar and orange essence, and the other made with sweet chocolate, white sugar and vanilla essence.
I went to put the tins in the oven, and noted that the top shelf was sticking out further than the bottom shelf. As I didn't want to burn my hand on the shelf, I used a towel to push it in. Put the tins in the oven, and promptly burnt my thumb on the top shelf anyway. Ouch. It is now blistering merrily and very sore.In an attempt to distract myself from the pain (oh! the pain!), here follow the recipes. I'd be very grateful if an American-type could translate them into your funny units so that more people could use them.
h-l's recipes for sweet and bitter chocolate brownies
Ingredients:
| Sweet choc brownies | Bitter choc brownies |
| 65g butter or margarine | 65g butter or margarine |
| 175g caster sugar | 175g dark soft sugar |
| 65g self-raising flour | 65g self-raising flour |
| 15g cocoa | 25g cocoa |
| 50g sweet chocolate | 50g bitter chocolate |
| 2 eggs, size 3 | 2 eggs, size 3 |
| 1 teaspoon vanilla essence | 1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence |
| 125g icing sugar mixed with a little cocoa | 1 teaspoon extract of orange |
| 100g dark chocolate drops | 70g chopped nuts |
Method: Preheat oven to 180 degrees C.
Melt margarine & stir in sugar.
Beat in eggs, flour and cocoa. Whiz with blender.
Beat in melted chocolate and nuts/chocolate drops.
Pour the mixture into a greased and lined 20cm (8 inch) square, shallow cake tin. Bake for 40 minutes until risen and firm.
Leave in tin to cool. For sweet brownies, make up icing using the icing sugar and a few tablespoons of boiling water. This is enough icing to drizzle the cakes, not to cover them completely.
When cakes are cool (and icing has set), cut into squares. Makes 9 large brownies or 12 smaller ones.
Notes to experimenters:
You can reduce the amount of sugar in this recipe, but doing so makes much firmer cakes that don’t keep as well. Reducing it to 150g is about as low as you can go and still have brownies rather than chocolate cakes.
You could also try using peppermint essence instead of orange. However the vanilla is essential to bring out the taste of the chocolate.
