This is an unapologetically sweet recipe. Having said that, I cringed a little when I wrote down the quantity of sugar required, and so I suppose it is a slightly apologetically sweet recipe.
Regardless of apologies, though, this is an excellent recipe to have up your sleeve. Baked for a little less time, dusted with icing sugar and served with some good quality vanilla ice cream and berries and you have a perfectly guest-appropriate, totally delicious, albeit relatively unsophisticated dessert.
Baked a little longer until firm (as below), cut into micro squares and you have a guaranteed hit at a bake sale / colleague’s leaving do / lunchbox Friday treat – you get the drift.
And, conveniently, they are the perfect pep-up when solo parenting 4 small children, while your husband is in a penthouse suite, enjoying 28degree sunshine.
What I’m trying to say is: everybody loves a chocolate brownie!
I will add that I have tried a number of recipes that are more complex than this; that use a million eggs (I’m looking at you, Nigella); that rely on a more sophisticated melted chocolate rather than the half-cup of cocoa powder that this recipe calls for.
Those recipes, though, are much more complex and yield something far less satisfying than this, which has exactly the sweetness and density you want from a brownie.
Enough of the intro! Here’s the recipe.
Ingredients
220g butter (melted)
380g white sugar (sorry)
60g cocoa powder
1tsp vanilla extract
4 eggs
220g plain / all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
Pinch salt
Handful semisweet chocolate chips
Method
Preheat the oven. (180C / 350F)
Line a baking tray, a regular rectangular brownie sized tray.
Melt the butter. Add all the other ingredients in the order described. Mix.
Bake for 20minutes (gooey centred) – 28minutes (firmer, lunchbox appropriate). Cool on a rack. Slice. Eat, with a cup of tea and the soothing sounds of the Octonauts in the background while you obsessively refresh screen on your husband’s return flight details. Nearly there.
tMatM x
These sound yummy! Do the following amounts look right for the ridiculously backward Americans who won’t join the world in using the metric system?
1 cup (2 sticks) butter (melted)
1 3/4 cups white sugar (sorry)
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1tsp vanilla extract
4 eggs
1 1/2 cups plain / all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
Pinch salt
Handful semisweet chocolate chips
Thanks!
Author
Hi Jen! I switch allegiances between weighing scales and cups depending on recipes….however, this gives me the perfect excuse to make a second batch of brownies today/this weekend – we’ll measure the weight out in cups and report back 😉
Author
Hi Jen- we made another batch today, with 1 cup butter, 2 cups sugar (sorry), 3/4 cup cocoa (even sorrier), 2 cups flour, all the rest the same. Turned out well! H
Oh boy! Special occasion only. Thanks! 🙂