Cooking Club Week 17: Chocolate Brownies

Toto Wolfcastle

Chocolate Brownies

This recipe is great for testing how well you know your oven or for getting to know your oven. This is because, in my experience, the timings have varied greatly depending on the oven used.


Ingredients:

300g plain chocolate (60% is good for these, but even Bourneville is fine)
300g soft light brown sugar
150g butter
3 eggs, lightly beaten
110g plain flour
120ml sour cream
1tsp vanilla extract
200g dark chocolate chips


Method:

1. Grease an 8-inch square tin and line the bottom with parchment. A tin with a removable base is best.

2. Pre-heat the oven to 180c (gas mark 4).

3. Melt the butter with the chocolate and stir until smooth. Allow to cool for a few minutes.

4. Stir in the sugar.

5. Stir in the eggs and vanilla extract.

6. Mix in the flour, followed by the sour cream and the chocolate chips.

7. Pour the mixture into the prepared tin.

8. Bake for about 15-20 minutes. After this time cover the top of the tin with foil and continue to bake. Check every 10 minutes or so. Just keep an eye on them and check them with a skewer. Even though they are gooey the skewer should come out relatively clean. I usually leave mine in for 40 minutes in total as I like them gooey in the middle.

9. Allow to cool and cut into squares.


These are great hot or cold, and can be kept in the fridge or in an airtight container for a few days. Eat on their own or with vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce if you've decided to give Weight Watchers a miss this week.

I'll post some pictures later in the week when I get a chance to make some myself.

Flamed Diving

Yummy, hopefully these will go better for me than the flapjacks!

Faith

Why would you do that Janeybabe? Why? I'm supposed to be eating healthily from now on!

...I'm making them on Friday.

Toto Wolfcastle

Have them with ice cream. Plenty of calcium.

The Recliner

I will give this a go at the weekend

I made brownies recently and they turned out well

But having tasted Janeybabe's brownies previously I can only hope these turn out as well cos Janey's brownies were fantastic

angeldelight

not a wonderful picture but best I could do with my phone

honestly.... Almost too chocolately for me... But didn't stop me wolfing it down and the OH is dying to get home from work to try it

Toto Wolfcastle

Looks good.

They are very rich.

Flamed Diving

I need to invest in a baking tin, actually.

Little Alex

So, janeybabe, these are my brownies:



I had a bit of chocolate left over so I melted it over the top...

Thank you for the lovely recipe, especially at such short notice.

Toto Wolfcastle

Yum. They look lovely.

How did you get the edges so straight? I think my problem is that I don't wait until they are cool before I cut them.

angeldelight

Yes Alex yours look great, mine were a bit crumbly - think I was too impatient

The Black Oil

I've a feeling this will be very rich. It's hardened a bit now, btw. Oh, had no sour cream so I used milk instead..

Faith

Could you make this with milk chocolate? I don't want it to be too rich!

Toto Wolfcastle

I don't really like milk chocolate in cakes or brownies but I'm sure you could make them with it. If you still want the dark chocolate taste maybe try Bourneville or something similar that isn't really that dark.

Little Alex

janeybabe wrote: »

Yum. They look lovely.

How did you get the edges so straight? I think my problem is that I don't wait until they are cool before I cut them.

Thanks! I have to admit that I trimmed the edges.

angeldelight wrote: »

Yes Alex yours look great, mine were a bit crumbly - think I was too impatient

I baked yesterday but waited until today. Managed to resist the temptation...

Faith wrote: »

Could you make this with milk chocolate? I don't want it to be too rich!

I actually used half milk and half dark because it's what I had here. The chocolate for the top is milk choc with a little milk added to kep it soft.

susanroth

mmmm they look good:Di always use the 70% choc from lidl or aldi, its not expensive and its great for baking IMO:p and if you dont want it too rich sometimes i mix 70% and 46%

The Recliner

Ladies and Gents I present to you, the tower of Brownies



Made them this morning, they turned out quite nicely, took 35 mins, I only had Bournville but they are tasty, I will try them again in a few weeks with proper dark chocolate

Faith

Mine are cooling right now. I don't know whether my tin was too small or what, but they took forever to cook. Eventually I took them out and figured I'd just let them be really gooey. I'll report back after I've cut them, in an hour or so.

Toto Wolfcastle

The Recliner wrote: »

Ladies and Gents I present to you, the tower of Brownies



Made them this morning, they turned out quite nicely, took 35 mins, I only had Bournville but they are tasty, I will try them again in a few weeks with proper dark chocolate

Wow Popey, you have outdone yourself! They look yum!

I'm in the process of making mine at the moment. Unfortunately we've had a slight issue with the sour cream and have to go buy more. But they should be done within an hour.

Zaph

Finally, some pics. janeybabe made some brownies today (I helped by staying out of the way as much as possible and acting as official photographer ). Here are the results:

The ingredients



Chocolate/butter mixture



The finished mixture



Before going into the oven



Just out of the oven



Just before I wolfed them down




Best batch of brownies she's made so far. And the previous batches were pretty spectacular.

The Recliner

janeybabe wrote: »

Wow Popey, you have outdone yourself! They look yum!

I'm in the process of making mine at the moment. Unfortunately we've had a slight issue with the sour cream and have to go buy more. But they should be done within an hour.

They turned out lovely, thank you for the recipe

I brought some to the pub yesterday to watch the leinster match, they got devoured quickly and got lots of compliments

ya-what-now?

Holy god Zaph they look so moist I'm salivating... NOM!

Snowie

Zaph wrote: »

Best batch of brownies she's made so far. And the previous batches were pretty spectacular.

pffffft all il say

biddywiddy

I made these brownies last night and they are savage! Fab recipe! I left the middle a little 'un-set' and when they cooled turned really fudgey. The crispier bits around the edges are sooooo good too!

Thanks janeybabe!

chickenpoo

Bought the ingredients for these last night, and will make them over the weekend, can't wait! They look so yummy...

tscul32

Having been inspired by this thread I dug out my brownie recipe last night and brought a batch into work. By God they were good.

Malari

Hmm, I didn't have as much success with these. They were in the oven for over an hour, but still weren't set fully in the middle. New oven, so that wasn't the problem. I admit I didn't use a tin with a removeable base, but I couldn't get them out of the tin without them falling apart.

Still, they taste good!

biddywiddy

Malari wrote: »

Hmm, I didn't have as much success with these. They were in the oven for over an hour, but still weren't set fully in the middle. New oven, so that wasn't the problem. I admit I didn't use a tin with a removeable base, but I couldn't get them out of the tin without them falling apart.

Mine took over an hour too. I kept checking and eventually took them out when only the very centre was sticking to the skewer. I was afraid the edges would get too dry, but in hindsight the edges were the nicest bits so I think I'd leave it in longer next time.

I didn't have a tin with removable base so I just lined a square tin with aluminum foil. Cooled in the tin and then tipped it out and peeled off the foil.

nice1franko

I made these a couple of weeks ago. They were nice enough alright but not as good as I expected. I used good chocolate and everything so not too sure where I went wrong but basically they were a bit 'eggy' in the middle or something... kind of flat and damp.



That said, they were still nice - and they were all scoffed, so they weren't that bad!

TeletextPear

I was in the mood for something chocolately last night and these fit the bill perfectly. I only put in 50g of sugar and put some melted choc over the top when they had cooled. Nicest brownies Ive ever had!