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Hi, my name is Alice and I am a self-confessed bake-a-holic. My dream is to one day own a tea room full of gorgeous things, with books everywhere, vintage crockery, and of course plenty of home made cake! On this blog I plan to share all my trials and triumphs from the kitchen, as well as some of my favourite recipes and inspiration that I gather along the way.

Monday 23 May 2011

Chocolate Brownies

I've spent a while struggling to find a brownie recipe that works consistently, is straight forward and of course results in perfect chocolate brownies! This is the best I've found so far, not too gooey and not too cakey and more or less bang on in the chocolatey stakes. It makes about 12 decent sized brownies, or more if you want to cut it into little bites. The baking tin I use is 20cm by 30cm, but a slighter smaller tin would be fine too, it would just give you thicker brownies that take a bit longer to cook (see advice at the bottom on how to tell when the brownies are done). Oh, and it tastes especially brilliant just out the oven with a good scoop of ice cream :)


75g Margarine (butter works too, but it does take longer to melt)
340g dark brown sugar
2 large eggs, beaten
165g self raising flour
65g cocoa powder
1 tsp vanilla essence (almond essence also tastes good)

  • Preheat oven to 170c
  • Melt the margarine in a pan over a low heat, remove once all melted
  • Using a wooden spoon stir in the sugar
  • Stir the beaten egg and vanilla essence into the mixture
  • Gradually stir in the flour and cocoa powder, taking care to avoid lumps
  • Pour into a baking tin (no need to grease or line) and spread out evenly
  • Cook for 30 minutes (see below)
  • Cut up and remove from tray whilst still warm

The real trick when it comes to telling if the brownies are cooked is in my experience the 'talking' and the wobble tests. When you take the tray out of the oven, carefully tilt it from side to side. If it still looks like it's moving under the surface then it probably needs longer. Also, hold it up near your ear (carefully, singed ear doesn't do much for the flavour) and if you can still hear the mixture 'talking' it isn't quite done yet.

The hearts on the borwnies in the picture were owing to a charity event I baked them for and were simply drawn on using a glitter icing pen.
Happy baking!

3 comments:

  1. hi Alice - thanks for visiting my blog and leaving a comment.

    This looks very much like my favourite brownie recipe - but you've forgotten to put the amount of flour in the ingredients list, and it would be better for beginner bakers if you said what size baking tin to use.

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  2. Thanks! I hadn't even noticed that! All edited now.

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  3. Oh, another brownie recipe to try. One of the things that makes me happy is realising I probably won't run out for an awfully long time :)

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