A Recipe Blog

Today I attempted to make brownies for the first time. I started with a brownie recipe from taste.com.au, but ended up modifying it quite a bit.  They turned out yum thankfully, they were a lot of work as I haven’t baked much, so it was all a bit new to me! James also enjoyed them and is happy we have leftovers for later :-) I made them for him really as he’s a bit fan of brownies with nuts (and I’m a big sweeth tooth, so it was totally for me too, hehe).

Ingredients (makes 12 slices)

• Melted butter, to grease
• 150g butter
• 150g dark cooking chocolate, coarsely chopped (I used Cadbury brand)
• 120g (3/4 cup) blanched almonds, coarsely chopped
• 3 eggs, lightly whisked
• 270g (1 1/4 cups) white sugar
• 60ml (1/4 cup) golden syrup
• 30g (1/4 cup) cocoa powder
• 75g (1/2 cup) plain flour
• 55g (1/2 cup) almond meal
• 125g (1/2 cup) light sour cream (I used Weight Watchers brand)
• Vanilla ice-cream or double cream, to serve (optional)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 180°C. Brush a 20 x 30cm (base measurement) slice pan with melted butter to grease. Line the base and sides with non-stick baking paper.
2. Melt the 150g butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Remove from heat. Add the chocolate and stir together until the chocolate melts and is smooth. Transfer to a large bowl.
3. Spread the almonds over a baking tray. Bake in oven for 8 minutes or until toasted. Set aside to cool.
4. Add the egg, sugar, golden syrup, cocoa powder, flour, almond meal and sour cream to the chocolate and butter mixture. Stir well, and ensure you break up chunks of the sour cream and flour (see note 1 below).
5. Stir in the toasted almonds. Spread the mixture over the base of the prepared pan.
6. Bake in oven for approximately 30-40 minutes, or until the top of the mixture is spongy and fairly solid.
7. Remove tray from oven. Carefully cut into twelve (or however many) slices. Remove slices from pan (see note 2 below).
8. Set aside for 5 minutes to cool.
9. Cut into squares. Serve warm with ice-cream or cream if desired.

Notes:

1. To be honest, I don’t mind getting my hands dirty so I just kneading and mixed everything with my hands at first for this step; it was easy to feel the bumps this way. Then I used a spoon after I was satisfied it was smooth enough.
2. You may notice the underside of some of the brownies are not as cooked and solid as the top during this step. If so, just flip them and bake them for another 10 minutes, or until the tops are spongy and fairly solid. This resulted with the middle of the brownies being fairly moist… yummmm.

Tags: chocolate, not gluten free, nuts, oven baked, pan fried, vegetarian