This week I have my last class with my English students, and as a special treat I’ve decided to make them some cake. I couldn’t decide what to make, and ended up with two choices – the first is chocolate brownies (I know, not really cake, but they will be easy for me to carry into work and I thought that a big cake is difficult to cut into 15 pieces!). This is the best recipe that I’ve found and it comes from The Hummingbird Bakery cookbook – it’s tried and tested, simple and works every time. The trick is to use the best quality dark chocolate that you can find to make them super chocolatey, so I used Green and Black’s 85% dark chocolate. I also invested in a proper brownie pan, which has been well worth it. Yum!

Ingredients

200g dark chocolate, roughly chopped
175g unsalted butter
325g caster sugar
130g plain flour
3 eggs
Icing sugar for dusting

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 170C/325F/Gas 3. Boil the kettle and line the tin.

2. Put the chocolate and butter into a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water (use the boiling water from the kettle to make this quicker). Don’t let the base of the bowl touch the water, and leave until melted and smooth.

3. Remove from the heat. Add the sugar and stir really well until incorporated. Add the flour and then stir really well.

4. Add the eggs (all in one go – not like a cake!) and mix until thick and smooth. (It might seem like it will never mix, but keep going!)

5. Spoon the mixture into the prepared baking tray and bake in the oven for about 30-35 minutes, or until flaky on the top but still soft in the centre. Be careful not to overcook otherwise the edges will become hard and crunchy.

6. Leave to cool completely before slicing and dusting with icing sugar. As you can see, this isn’t my strong point – I end up with loads or hardly any! The book says this make about 12, but if you use good quality chocolate they will be really rich, so I cut them into 18 pieces.

7. Enjoy your brownies with a cuppa 🙂