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Chocolate Brownies

This is my favourite Brownie recipe based on one of Mary Berry’s. I hope you enjoy it. Please let me know in the comments. 🙂

Chocolate Brownies

 

Ingredients. (This recipe can be halved which I often do and as the photo above shows)

  • 350g plain chocolate broken into pieces
  • 225g butter (I like to use salted butter)
  • 2 teasp instant coffee dissolved in 2 tbsp hot water
  • 3 extra large eggs (When halving the recipe I use two large eggs)
  • 225g sugar (I like to use soft brown or a mix of soft brown with golden caster)
  • 1 teasp vanilla essence or paste
  • 75g self-raising flower
  • 225g plain chocolate drops (I usually leave the choc drops out as the cake is overloaded with calories already!!)
  • 175g chopped walnuts (We don’t like walnuts so I use toasted slivered almonds. I don’t always add any nuts, again to cut calories!)

How to do it

  1. Pre-heat the oven to 190C/375F/Gas5
  2. Grease and line a 30cms x 23cms tin. For the half mixture, I use a 20cms square tin
  3. Melt the chocolate slowly in a bowl with the butter carefully in the microwave or over a pan of hot water. Allow to cool.
  4. In another bowl, mix together the coffee, eggs, sugar and vanilla.) I use a hand whisk at this point.)
  5. Gradually beat in the chocolate/butter melty mixture.
  6. Fold in the flour and, if using , the chocolate chips and your chosen nuts)
  7. Pour into the prepared tin.
  8. Bake in the pre-heated oven for 40-45 minutes (only 20-25 for the half mixture) until a dull crust has formed and it is just firm to the touch. N.B. I usually check after 35mins (20 mins for the half mixture) as the joy of a good Brownie is its gooiness and over-cooking will will take that away.
  9. Leave to cool in the tin.
  10. When the cake is completely cool. cut into squares.
  11. Enjoy it as it is or for a special occasion, pile the pieces into a Brownie Mountain and drizzle over some melted white chocolate and some edible gold dust and stick sparklers or candles or other decorations all over the place.

If you have the self restraint, the Brownie freezes well and defrosts very quickly when needed.

I’m sorry there are no process photos as in my other recipes but I hadn’t planned on posting this one until asked by Dear Readers.  I hope it is clear in the instructions.

 

Raindrops, Another Bench and Another Treat

We were caught in the rain this morning without a coat or an umbrella so we bought a magic new one! When the rain hits the white drops they change to all the colours of the rainbow. When the Live-Wires had their bath tonight, we put it under the shower much to their delight. 

 

Another of the benches in the school playground shows “The Enormous Crocodile” by Roald Dahl, a perennial favourite. I’ve just been told that these amazing benches (see yesterday’s post) have been painted by one of the Teaching Assistants. How brilliant is that!

 
It was J’s turn for a treat after school today so we went back to the Joie de Vie cafe where they play French music and speak to some customers in French as to J, “Bon appetite, Monsieur,” as he was served his chocolate brownie. J’s  “Au revoir,” as we left,  brought huge smiles to the faces behind the counter. 

   

 
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Posted by on June 29, 2016 in art, Beauty, Grandchildren

 

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Baking, Happy Home and Winter Clouds

We were due to go for a tea party this afternoon so I spent a happy morning baking Brownies and then constructing a Brownie Mountain to take with us.

Brownie Mountain

Brownie Mountain

It was such a lovely afternoon in a cottage in the grounds of Heligan and on the wall was this sign – just perfect for that household!

For every home

For every home

On the way home the clouds were beautiful.

Clouds and the sea

Clouds and the sea

Pink and Grey

Pink and Grey

Clouds on the road home

Clouds on the road home

 

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Shop Windows, Brownie Mountain and Lasagne

Life is getting back to normal! We went to Truro today, very early so as to have the pavements relatively free of shoppers so that walking with my crutches would be easy. There were some lovely Autumny windows and I found a new colouring book and a beautiful turquoise cardigan, lucky me!

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I have done my first baking today for over a month and those who read here regularly will know how I love to bake. With help from the lovely Mr S, I have made a Chocolate Brownie Mountain for a young friend whose 15th birthday it is today. She and her older sister first tasted my special brownies about seven years ago and always ask if there are any on the go so they seemed the right ones to make for her birthday.

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Our good friend G rang us this morning to say that he has made us a Lasagne for tonight’s meal – how kind is that? We have just finished eating it with a fresh green salad. Thank you!

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And for Sue-next-door who is away from home, another of her beautiful cats, seen here with a mottled coat of raindrops as I took the photo through the window.

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Posted by on September 19, 2015 in baking, Beauty, crochet, friendship, Kindness, photography

 

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Friends, Dessert and A Cornish Lane

1   What good advice this is and today we have taken it!

Spend your days with those who love you

Spend your days with those who love you

2   We all had lunch in Porthleven and this was our dessert, Chocolate Brownie with Cherries and Pistachio Ice-cream. It was utterly delicious as was the rest of the meal.

Dessert at The Square, Porthleven

Dessert at The Square, Porthleven

3   Driving home through Cornish lanes with the sun streaming through the tress was another delight.

Cornish lane

Cornish lane

 

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Golden Onions, Walk and Raw Chocolate Brownie

1   This morning the low beams of the winter sun caught our homegrown plaited onions and made them even more beautiful.

Golden onions

Golden onions

2   We had a walk around the Great Flat Lode behind our house today. There was a surprising amount of colour – golden gorse, Pink Campions, red berries and lovely green moss with ivy leaves and, on this crisp clear day, a very good blue view of the sea on the North coast of Cornwall.

3  I’ve made Raw Chocolate Brownies this afternoon for some friends on Tuesday. They are surprisingly fudgy and yummy!

Raw Chocolate Brownie

Raw Chocolate Brownie, just nuts and dates and Maple syrup, all ready for the freezer

Click on NaBloPoMo to see more in the post every day in November challenge.

 

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Lego, Paper Peacock and Grand Piano

1   Jake, 3, plays with such concentration with his Lego.

Serious concentration

2   We went to Truro this afternoon and went to the Lemon Street Market cafe for a chocolate brownie and a coffee. Floating above the shoppers is this beautiful paper sculpture of a peacock.

3   Upstairs, as well as the coffee shop, is a gallery and there is a beautiful baby grand piano with this notice on it inviting anyone to play! I would so love to play it but will have to have rather a lot more lessons before I’m ready for concert playing!

Do read this notice on the piano!

Today, at the end of my 7th month of blogging , I’ve reached 6366 viewings in 77 countries and 500 likes. Thank you so much to all my readers for your loyalty, your comments and likes-  all of which are greatly appreciated. I’ve also just been nominated for the Sunshine Award by http://erranttranscendentalist.wordpress.com/ about which I am both delighted and flattered and about which – more later………

Thank you all.

 
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Posted by on May 31, 2012 in Uncategorized

 

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