Even better Brownies

Well hello there. Long time, no see. Hope you've been keeping well? And how was your summer? Grab a coffee & a piece of brownie and tell me how you've been.

Over here at Recipe Junkie HQ it feels like it's been the summer of many things. The summer of all things Dutch, as we headed East for the Haarlem Jamborette, an international scout event that takes place not far from Amsterdam every 4 years. 

In fact, when we went 4 years ago, I'd just started this blog... As well as chaperoning 20 fantastic scouts & explorers for 10 days of 'scout type' fun and adventure (lighting fires, hiking, singing, camp firing, water games, plenty of outdoors), we visited Amsterdam and Utrecht, 

experienced amazing coffee art

visited a big Dutch theme park called Walibi World, and consumed vast amounts of Dutch mayonnaise, Vla ( a type of flavoured custard that is just ambrosial) &amp Sprinkles, and prawn crackers (don't ask).

Vla & Sprinkles. A true delicacy

Back home, it's been the summer of sheep, as we welcomed 26 woolly lodgers of the Shetland and Herdwick varieties to act as ovine grass cutters, and general providers of amusement with their surprisingly idiosyncratic sheep-like ways - especially their propensity to escape and nonchalantly stroll around the garden nibbling the roses & looking for human company...

Can you see why we needed the grass cutting?

It's been the summer of seizing the moment, and heading to the beach whenever possible - of the children choosing to go to the beach as 'the best thing ever', 

Of seeing dolphins, of the exhilaration of the waves, the joy of watching everyone else go home and know that you have the beach to yourselves; 

The summer of the ghillie kettle

Turns out that brewing up on the sand after a swim, usually wrapped up in a fleece (it may have been sunny, it hasn't always been warm), and then drinking it with a home made welsh cake or other bake, is one of my favourite things (funny that).

It's been the summer we finally made it up Cadair Idris - not the highest mountain in Wales, but one that's been on the Husband's bucket list for sometime. 

A view!

Which way?

And it's been a summer of sunsets

Sunset over the River Teifi

It's been a summer of family and friends as people finally sussed out that we really do live in a fantastic place, and we've welcomed visitors - some for an hour, some for a week and everything in between.

It's been a summer of fruit as the garden we have inherited has revealed gooseberries, red currants, blackcurrants, plums and now apples. The greengages are on the way too. There has been much rejoicing and jamming; stoning, freezing and the promise of crumble to come as Autumn creeps in.

It's also been a summer of community - starting to get to know our neighbours; working out who can sell you eggs in your hour of baking need; knowing that in times of crisis, like if you get the lawnmower stuck & set fire to the grass, at least 3 people will come running with buckets of water (ahem); working out how you can help them back; and the summer of understanding that there's stiff competition in the village in all things produce related.

And on that note, it has been the summer of the brownie. Not just any brownie though - the summer of my even better PRIZE WINNING chocolate brownie. Indeed. 2nd prize in the Ferwig Show. The final detail of flaked almonds on top came after the show. I'll nail it next year (not that I'm competitive or anything). Sadly, my jam came nowhere...

Chocolate Brownie

Due to a dinner party earlier in the summer when we had a coeliac amongst our guests, I had a bag of gluten free flour in the cupboards and have been experimenting. I'm not sure if it makes any difference, but it's good to know that it works supremely well in this bake - bring on the gluten free! What undoubtedly does make a difference is the presence of ground almonds which adds to the squodge factor in a most delightful way. After all, there's not much more disappointing than an insufficiently squodgy brownie - at least in culinary terms. Finally, the combination of milk & dark chocolate nails this recipe, as it means it's chocolatey enough for me, but not so dark that Pink won't eat it.

375g unsalted butter
200g milk chocolate
175g dark chocolate
100g gluten free (or just plain) flour
125 g ground almonds
a good pinch fine sea salt
6 large eggs
1 tbsp vanilla extract
350g caster sugar
50g flaked almonds

Your tin needs to be approx 33 by 23 cm and around 5 cm deep.

Preheat the oven to 180C/160C fan.

Line the tin with greaseproof paper.

if you're using blocks of chocolate, chop them up quite finely - or buy drops. 

Put the butter & chocolate in a large pan and melt gently together, then leave to cool for a couple of minutes.

Sift the flour and combine with the ground almonds and salt.

Whisk together the eggs, sugar and vanilla extract.

Once the melted butter & chocolate has cooled for a bit, beat in the egg mixture, then the flour mixture, making sure everything is combined.

Scrape into the prepared tin, sprinkle the flaked almonds on top, then bake for 25-ish minutes, but check at 20 - you don't want to over cook these beauties. 

You're looking for light and a little cracked on top, but still dark and dense underneath. if you're a brownie virgin, I'd recommend making these a few times, just to get the hang of it, you understand...

By the way - a good tip for slicing these babies - put the cooled brownie in the fridge, and then after it's cold, use a hot knife to slice cleanly through. A great tip that I pinched from the fabulous Vicky North - who also planted the idea of using the ground almonds in my head...

Chocolate Banana Brazil Brownies - of sorts

Not even I, queen of self-deception when it comes to the calorific content of food - specifically cake - can pretend that these Chocolate Banana Brazil Brownies (sort of) are healthy, but they are very, very good. 

And if you want to do what I normally do and subscribe to the notion that fruit = 'healthy' in a cake context, these do have bananas in (squishy ones at that) and brazil nuts - which I always count as 'health' food after reading Nigella's homage to chocolate coated brazil nuts...

These started life, recipe-wise as Dan Lepard's Banana Blondies, from 'Short & Sweet' but it was too hot to start making toffee, and I didn't have any white chocolate in the cupboard...

Chocolate Banana Brazil Brownies

100g unsalted butter
200g milk chocolate chips
225g caster sugar
1 large egg
2-3 squishy-ish bananas (200-250g) chopped
2 tsp vanilla bean paste
225g plain flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
100g brazil nuts, roughly chopped  

Line a 20cm square loose-bottomed tin, and pre-heat the oven to 170C.

Gently melt the butter and chocolate together, then scrape into a large bowl.

Add the sugar, the egg, vanilla and banana to the chocolate, and beat together till smooth ish (a few larger bits of banana will be fine.

Sift the flour and baking powder into the bowl, add the brazil nuts and fold in.

Scrape all this into the prepared tin and bake for 35-40 mins till the top is light, but there's still some squidge underneath. 

Leave to cool in the tin before cutting into squares.

Macadamia & Cointreau Brownies - or Tuesday night decadence

I know this all seems very decadent for a Tuesday night in January, when most of us are trying to either stay dry (you must be joking - I'm moving house in a few weeks), or shed the Christmas pounds (well, maybe), but I'd invited some friends round for dinner, and on reflection was not very pleased with the pudding I'd planned - stewed gooseberries (from the freezer) meringues and cream. The meringues had been a little overcooked - and I'd made them with vanilla sugar - so were on the 'caramelly' side, and I just wasn't sure about the gooseberries - despite plying them with elderflower cordial and sugar, they were still very tart. I like that, but others don't. So in true RJ style, I had a minor panic and decided to knock up an alternative using what I had.

Fortunately, what I had included chocolate and a pack of macadamia nuts, bought for another purpose which never materialised (as is often the way with me). I was rootling round for some rum, mindful of previous succesful brownie pairings, but I couldn't find any so Cointreau seemed like a good alternative. In truth, the capful I added didn't seem to make a huge amount of difference, but I might add a bit more next time, just to see. For what it's worth, I might also chop up the nuts a bit if I use them again in this way.

As usual with brownie, I had the agony of when to take it out of the oven. After 20 minutes the top was looking dry, there were a couple of cracks, and a gentle press revealed plenty of squodge underneath, but in the interests of them not being too squodgy, I gave them a couple more minutes, and they came out pretty perfect. Always a risk though.

Macadamia & Cointreau Brownie

180g unsalted butter
180g dark chocolate
1 capful of cointreau
3 large eggs
250g soft brown sugar
115g plain flour
small pack of macadamia nuts (around 150g)

Baking tin, lined with greaseproof paper. My tin is about 20 by 24 cm

Break up the chocolate and cube up the butter and put into a biggish pan over a gentle heat to melt.

Once melted, add in the cointreau, stir briefly and set aside for a few moments.

Beat together the eggs and sugar, then beat into the slightly cooled chocolate, then stir in the nuts and flour.

Scrape into the tin and bake for between 20-25 minutes - bearing in mind that over cooking leads to lack of squodge.

Allow to cool and cut into squares. 

In the end, we had both - the meringues, gooseberries and cream, AND the brownie. Like I said. Decadent.

Birthday Brownie

I should be telling you about another great meal last night which used up another of the can of left over kidney beans (the ones I failed to put in the chilli for the Husband's birthday). It was a healthy bean salad type thing, all the more succesful because both kids ate it and enjoyed it. I also made some cheeky toasted cumin flatbreads to go with, which made me feel all domestic goddess-y again because - a confession - I haven't made bread of any sort for a good couple of months now.

But healthy suppers and flatbreads will have to wait for another time, because I cannot get brownie out of my head.

I don't have much that's original to say about brownies. It's mostly been said before, some of it by me, here, but when has that ever stopped me? Badly made, they can be one of the most disappointing things on earth - dry, unyielding - just, well, disappointing.

On the other hand, get it right and you have absolutely one of the best types of chocolatey treat you can, in my humble opinion, ever eat. Rich, damp, squidgy, revealing the hidden treat of a nut or carefully chosen nugget of dried fruit (cranberries and cherries are my favourites, bringing an edge of sour to the party), a good brownie is absolutely to die for.


When I was wracking my brains to think of a suitably birthday-ish treat to take with us last week end and stick candles in to allow for the purposes of singing 'Happy Birthday', brownie was the obvious solution. As it's not actually the Husband's birthday till December, I didn't want to go all out with a bells & whistles birthday cake (plus, the obvious difficulty of keeping something (possibly elaborate) intact on a campsite was vexing me), but I wanted something celebratory. 

Flapjack would absolutely NOT have done.

Nigella offers brownie as a birthday cake solution, and I have to say, she's right. Stacked up, with candles in the pieces, it looks very festive. It's also dead easy to make. Marvellous.

La Lawson reckons you can get 48 out of this quantity. I got 24 (admittedly fairly generous) pieces, but I wouldn't have wanted to go much smaller, and as we were 45, I made 2 batches, one with walnuts, one with dried cranberries. Do watch them like a hawk once you've baked them for around 20 minutes. I set my timer for 22 mins, and probably did take them out at around 25 minutes, but they will continue to cook in the tin, once you've taken them out of the oven, so don't leave them too long in the oven.

Chocolate & Cranberry Brownie

2375g unsalted butter
375g dark chocolate (70% cocoa)
6 large eggs
1 tbsp vanilla extract
450g caster sugar
225g plain flour
1 tsp salt
300g dried cranberries (if you prefer, use 300g chopped walnuts)

Pre-heat the oven to 180 and line a tin with greaseproof paper (I have a roasting tin which is approx 27 by 23 cm and 4 cm deep. Nigella's is bigger (33 by 23), so her brownie is probably thinner and so more easily cuttable into 48. It's up to you. I won't judge you...)

In a large pan, gently melt together the chocolate and butter, then set aside to cool slightly. 

Beat together the sugar, eggs and vanilla, and in a separate bowl, combine the flour and salt.

Beat the eggs and sugar into the melted butter & chocolate, then the flour, then stir through the cranberries. 

When it's all combined, scrape it into the prepared tin and bake for around 25 minutes. It's worth checking a little earlier just to see how its doing. The top will be paler and may have started to crack, but make sure the middle is still a little squodgy when you take it out of the oven.

Cut into pieces and serve - with or without candles.