Chocolate orange brownies

Happy New Year! Now before you all embark on detoxes and healthy eating here is a truly delicious, indulgent recipe. I suspect many people will have got Terry's chocolate oranges for Christmas and may have them left over if they have had other goodies to eat, if not many supermarkets are now selling them off.

I myself was requested to make brownies for a boxing day party. I decided to make them 'christmas-y' by adding the chocolate orange and was very happy indeed to find them by one get one free. One for the brownies one for me! I used a white chocolate orange for a nice contrast but use any variety you like.

A low oven really does make for the best fudgey brownies. My parents oven is not like my crazy super hot oven and resulted in the best brownies I have made for a long time. I will be turning my oven down even further when I go back home.

Chocolate orange brownies

200g dark chocolate

175g butter

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

tablespoon strong coffee

300g caster sugar

115g plain flour

15g cocoa powder

3 eggs

1 chocolate orange, each segment broken into 3

Preheat the oven to 170^oC/fan 150^oC and line you brownie pan with baking parchment.

Melt the chocolate and butter until smooth (I did this in a bowl over a pan of barely simmering water).

Once melted, remove the butter chocolate mix from the heat and stir in the sugar, vanilla and coffee until fully incorporated.

Add the flour and cocoa powder to the bowl and mix until combined.

Beat the eggs lightly with a fork and add to the bowl, mix until smooth and then finally stir through the chocolate orange.

Pour the mixture into the prepared pan and cook for 30-35 minutes until lightly flaky ontop but not overcooked.

Leave to cool in the pan then cut into chunks

Triple chocolate brownies, take two

After being away for a over a week, I feel like its time to get some baking done! I will hopefully have a free weekend to whip up some treats to go on the blog and more importantly EAT!

I did quickly make up a batch of brownies in response to a request for something chocolatey. I decided to have a second attempt at John Whaite's brownies.

You may recall that the first time I made these I forgot about them, overbaked them and consequently the texture suffered.

This time I did not overbake them, hurrah! The texture is dense and they are packed full of chocolate flavour, they are what I would call a 'professional' brownie. By this they cut very well and you could imagine them being packaged up without sticking.

Are they the perfect brownie? Hmm the juries out, they taste so rich and amazing yet there is just a little bit of gooey-ness missing in the centre. I do not think I could bake them any less though. I may give them one more try before setting back out on my quest for the ultimate brownie!

If you would like the recipe you will find it here.

Triple chocolate brownies

I know, another brownie recipe, I love brownies though and am always striving to find that perfect one, you know, the fudgy chewy one with the delicately crisp top?

As if a brownie were not indulgent enough I do enjoy pimping them, as it were, with cookie dough, chocolate bars, biscuits etc. These are a slightly more normal variety, the triple chocolate.

Its a recipe I have just slightly adapted from John Whaite's book. He uses different ratios of ingredients to some of my other brownie recipes, I wondered how this would affect taste and texture. Some of you may remember the apple sauce in a previous post? If that did not put you off how do you fare with the unusual ingredients in this recipe... mayonnaise  Yes that's right, the sandwich/chip condiment. John maintains that it keeps the brownies chewy. I am willing to give it a go.

I like my brownies deeply chocolate-y so have used all dark chocolate in the batter, John uses a mix of dark and milk. I have reduced the cocoa powder slightly. I have also added some coffee into the batter, not a lot, but coffee really brings out the depth of chocolate. I have also reduced the sugar very marginally, not enough to affect texture but hopefully to stop the brownies being too sweet.

Triple chocolate brownies

180g dark chocolate
125g butter
1 heaped tsp instant coffee
2 eggs
tsp vanilla paste/extract
3 tbsps mayo
125g light brown sugar
75g caster sugar
180g plain flour
2 tbsps cocoa
70ml milk
50g milk chocolate, chopped into chunks
50g white chocolate, chopped into chunks

Grease and line a brownie pan with baking paper and preheat the oven to 160C/140C FAN. 

Place the butter and dark chocolate in a heatproof bowl and set over a pan of barely simmering water. Allow the butter and chocolate to melt, stirring occasionally  When melted remove from the heat and stir in the coffee. allow to cool for a couple of minutes. Add the eggs, vanilla and mayonaise and beat in with a wood spoon until the mix is smooth and glossy. 

Add the sugars and stir to combine. Add the flour. cocoa powder and milk and stir until no streaks of flour are vissible. Finally mix through the chopped chocolate chunks. 

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top with a sptaula. Bake in the preheated oven for 20 minutes.

Once removed from the oven allow the brownie to cool in the tin for at least an hour, this will make it much easier to remove. Using the baking paper remove the brownie from the tin, cut into brownie sized chunks and allow to cool fully on a wire rack before storing in an airtight container. 

I am an idiot. I completely lost track of time and these brownies baked for at least 5-7 minutes longer than they should. Therefore the taste is amazing, deep and intensely chocolatey but the texture is wrong. The are too cakey and not fudgey enough and this is, I think, purely my own fault.

I will be making a second batch for work, I am sure they will not complain, as a test, and hopefully I will be able to update this post with good news!

Apple sauce brownies

Wait wait, before you turn your nose up let me assure you these brownies are chock full of chocolate.

I read somewhere (can't remember where) that you could replace half the fat in most baking with fruit purée of some sort, such as apple.

Now maybe this would make some cakes and traybakes much healthier but I don't think it can make the humble brownie much healthier, yes the fat will be reduced but lets not forget about the 300g of chocolate in them and I am NOT replacing my chocolate with fruit.

I was interested to see the final texture and so an experiment began. I have also just realised apple sauce begins with 'A' so I am sliding it in as a last minute alpha bakes entry!

Apple sauce brownies

200g dark chocolate 
40g butter50g groundnut oil, or another 50g butter
85g apple sauce230g caster sugar130g plain flour3 eggs
100g white chocolate, I used giant milky bar buttons

Preheat the oven to 170C/150C FAN. Grease and line a brownie tin with baking parchment.

Place the butter, oil and chocolate in a heat proof bowl and set over a pan of barely simmering water. Allow to melt, stirring from time to time. When fully melted remove the bowl from the heat and mix in the sugar until fully incorporated. Next stir in the flour until no more remains visible. Finally add the eggs one at time and stir until combined. 

Pour the brownie mix into the prepared pan and level out with a spatula, or the back of a spoon. 
Bake in the oven for 25-35 minutes until flaky on top but not overcooked, you want a nice fudgey centre! Remove from the oven and allow to cool in the tin for at least an hour this will make removal  much easier. 

The verdict? These were good, they were pretty fudgey and chewy in the centre and crisp on top. Not as fudgey as a full fat brownie with not quite that oozey goo in the very centre. Its possible I over baked them a little but I am sure its the apple sauce. You could not really taste the apple unless you got a small piece, maybe a should have sieved the apple sauce first. I would definitely try fruit purée in future bakes.

Salted caramel brownies

The book for this months cupcake book club, kindly organised by Kelly at an America cupcake in London, was certainly thought provoking.

Rose is able to taste feelings in food, the feelings of whoever has baked it. She comes to hate food and the secrets it divulges, preferring to stick to factory processed pre packaged goods.

It certainly got me thinking. I love to bake at any time, and do, but sometimes I use baking when I am stressed or busy as a way to calm down. Yesterday I had one of those days where lots of little things were all going wrong (it all started when I broke my favourite mug) and I just wanted to go home and comfort bake. Brownies, with their chocolatey rich indulgence, are a perfect comfort bake.

When Rose tries brownies a character in the book has baked she immediately knows that they are depressed. Now I was not that bad but I imagine Rose would find mine 'busy' 'conflicted' 'tired' and maybe a little 'upset'. Ugh they do not sound pleasant.

Thankfully I and my boyfriend do not possess any such tasting talent. Mark declared them delicious and I have to say I am inclined to agree. And, with a cup of tea and the Great British Bake Off, they were medicinal in their ability to boost my mood!

Salted caramel brownies

makes ~16, depending on what size you cut them

for the caramel

80g caster sugar
75ml double cream
5g butter
sea salt, taste


For the brownie

200g dark chocolate 
125g butter
50g groundnut oil
250g caster sugar
130g plain flour
3 eggs

Preheat the oven to 170C/150C FAN. Grease and line a brownie tin with baking parchment.

First make the caramel, gently heat the sugar in a saucepan until melted, you can swirl the pan but do not stir. Allow it to become a golden brown and then remove from the heat. Immediately add in the double cream, it will bubble up quite violently, and stir well. Put the pan back over a low heat and gently warm until thickened slightly, it should coat the back of a spoon. Remove from the heat and stir in the butter and sea salt, add the salt a little at a time, tasting as you go. Set aside while you make the brownie mix.  

Place the butter, oil and chocolate in a heat proof bowl and set over a pan of barely simmering water. Allow to melt, stirring from time to time. When fully melted remove the bowl from the heat and mix in the sugar until full incorporated. Next stir in the flour until no more remains visible. Finally add the eggs one at time and stir until fully combined. 

Pour half the brownie mix into the prepared pan and level out with a spatula, or the back of a spoon. Drizzle over the caramel in an even ish layer. Nb this is not a thick separate layer of caramel, instead a substantial swirly throughout the centre.

Pour the rest of the batter over, making sure all the caramel is covered.

Bake in the oven for 25-35 minutes until flaky on top but not overcooked, you want a nice fudgey centre! Remove from the oven and allow to cool in the tin for at least an hour this will make removal  much easier. 

A little bit of caramel tries to escape!

Using the baking parchment to help you, lift the brownie from the tin and transfer it to a wire rack. When fully cool cut with a sharp knife into whatever size brownie pieces you require.

Peanut butter cookie stuffed brownies

This looks like a normal brownie right?

Well, it is a chocolate brownie, but it has a hidden surprise  A very yummy surprise I might add. I have hidden balls of peanut cookie dough within the brownie.

The peanut cookie dough adds a lovely nutty salty contrast to the sweet brownie. Saying that I always cut a little sugar from brownie recipes as I like them deep and chocolatey and not too sweet.

Peanut butter cookies stuffed chocolate brownies

makes 18 (dependant on how big you cut them!)

For the cookie

28g butter
28g peanut butter (I used crunchy)
25g caster sugar
40g light brown sugar
Tbsp milk
70g plain flour
pinch of salt

For the brownie

200g dark chocolate 
75g butter
100g groundnut oil
275g caster sugar
130g plain flour
3 eggs

Preheat the oven to 170C/150C FAN. Grease and line a brownie tin with baking parchment.

First make the cookie dough, beat together the butter, peanut butter and sugar until creamy. Beat in the milk and finally stir in the flour to bring the cookie dough together. Put the dough aside whist you make the brownies. 

Place the butter, oil and chocolate in a heat proof bowl and set over a pan of barely simmering water. Allow to melt, stirring from time to time. When fully melted remove the bowl from the heat and mix in the sugar until full incorporated. Next stir in the flour until no more remains visible. Finally add the eggs one at time and stir until fully combined. 

Pour half the brownie mix into the prepared pan and level out with a spatula, or the back of a spoon. Take small pieces of the cookie dough and roll into balls. Evenly disperse the cookie dough balls over the batter and press them in every so slightly.

Pour the rest of the batter over, making sure all the cookie dough is covered  even if it is only a wafer thin covering, 

Bake in the oven for 25-35 minutes until flaky on top but not overcooked, you want a nice fudgey centre! Remove from the oven and allow to cool in the tin for at least an hour this will make removal  much easier. 

Using the baking parchment to help you, lift the brownie from the tin and transfer it to a wire rack. When fully cool cut with a sharp knife into whatever size brownie pieces you require.

You can of course use your own personal favourite brownie recipe but I have posted this one as it has become my favourite quite by accident! I had started to make these when it became clear I would not have enough butter. This never happens. It was nearly a disaster. However I substituted groundnut oil for the missing butter. I was a little worried the brownies would be cakey but hoped there was enough butter to keep them fudgey.

Totally unexpectedly these were my favourite type of brownie, a crisp top, fudgey centre and just a little bit of chew, hmmmm.  

Twix Brownies

Hi, sorry for the lack of posts of late, I have been on holiday! I was in Europe and got to sample some delicious European baking whilst I was away.

I have a backlog of posts and hopefully will get them all up in the next few days.

When I went away my flight was from London. There was no way I could make it from Edinburgh on the day I was due to fly and so I stayed with my sister overnight. In return for letting me stay I took brownies. After a little discussion it was decided that she wanted twix brownies, so twix brownies it was.

To make the brownies I simply made up some brownie mix (see recipe here, just omit the oreos). I poured half of this mix into my greased and lined brownie pan. 

I then chopped fun sized twixes in half. 

I layered the twixes on top of the batter

I then poured the rest of the batter on top.

The brownies were baked at 170C/150C FAN for 25 minutes and allowed to cool in the tin before transferring them to a wire rack. 

I did get to sample one of these, quality control you understand, and they were really good. Fudgy in the middle with the lovely crunch of the twix. I will have to make them again so I can have more then one, just to make sure they are as good as I remember!

White chocolate and pecan blondies

Ugh. I like what I do, really I do, but you know those days where everything just goes wrong? And it just gets worse and worse and spreads into your everyday life until you cannot walk down the street without falling off the kerb? Yep, that was my day yesterday. Never mind this set of lovelies was going to combine into baking magic and hopefully cheer me right up.

Why are my eggs in a jug? I dropped the egg box, three eggs had to be salvaged immediately, Told you it was one of those days.

I have never made blondies before and looking at recipes they seem to be split into two camps. Those that use melted white chocolate and those that use just brown sugar to flavour them. I do not know which camp is 'right', if any, but I went with the chocolate camp.

I did tweak the recipe though, I lowered the sugar a little as I thought that they would be very sweet already. I also stole ideas from the brown sugar camp and used some light brown sugar instead of all caster sugar.

White chocolate and pecan blondies (adapted from hummingbird bakery)


150g white chocolate
125g butter
100g caster sugar
30g light brown sugar
2 eggs
200g plain flour
100g shelled pecan nuts, chopped


Preheat the oven to 170C/150 FAN and grease and line a brownie tin.


Place a bowl over a pan of barely simmering water. Place the butter and chocolate into the bowl and leave to melt.


Stir the sugars into the melted mixture until well combined. The mixture will look curdled and split at this point, do not panic, all will be well. Add the eggs and beat quickly, the mixture should come back together. 


Add the flour and chopped nuts and stir until all the flour is incorporated and the the nuts are evenly dispersed. 


Pour into prepared brownie tin and level. Bake in preheated oven for 30-35 minutes.


Leave to cool in the tin before removing and cutting into squares. 

A few notes. I used a tin with pretty much the same overall measurements as the recipe and found the blondies to be quite shallow. First of all this affected the coking time in my oven, I took them out after 22 minutes. Make sure you keep an eye on them. They are rich so shallow is not necessarily a problem but I do like that fudgy centre bit you get in deep brownies. I may up the recipe by half when I make them again. Clearly the number of blondies you get depends on how large you cut them! 

I think these are amazing. It took a lot of self restraint not to sit and eat the entire tin. M likes them but is not overly keen on pecans so I need to think of some variations. I was wondering about salted peanuts to combat the sweetness? We shall see.  

Hazelnut brownies

In my previous post I mentioned entering alpha bakes, this month the letter is H and I made hazelnut macarons. However this meant I had nutella and hazelnuts left over. Not really a bad thing I suppose, but it is when I can eat nutella from the jar. Weirdly I used to hate it but I am making up for that now! So to stop raiding the jar with a teaspoon I decide to use up the nutella in a baking venture.

By chance I had also found a bar of dark chocolate left over from something ages ago. I decided that I should use up all my leftovers, after all, waste not want not, and made Hazelnut brownies.

Hazelnut brownies


200g dark chocolate
175g butter
200g caster sugar
100g brown sugar
115g plain flour
15g cocoa powder
3 large eggs
Chopped hazelnuts
Nutella

Preheat the oven to 170^oC/fan 150^oC and line a brownie pan with baking parchment.

Melt the chocolate and butter until smooth (I did this in a bowl over a pan of barely simmering water).

Once melted, remove the butter chocolate mix from the heat and stir in the sugar until fully incorporated.

Add the flour and cocoa powder to the bowl and mix until combined.

Beat the eggs lightly with a fork and add to the bowl, mix until smooth and then finally stir through the chopped hazelnuts. I was using leftovers so did not weigh them, add as many as you like for texture. Reserve some to sprinkle on top. 

Pour half the mixture into the prepared pan and add dollops of nutella, swirl these a bit with a knife. Add the remaining brownie batter on top. Blob on more nutella and swirl.

 Finish with a scattering of chopped hazelnuts and cook for 30-35 minutes until lightly flaky on top but not overcooked.

Leave to cool in the pan and then chop into chunks.

Quick confession, I only had 175g of dark chocolate and figured they would be fine. Which they are, no major disasters. Having said that the texture is different to that of my Oreo brownies. They are not quite as fudgy, a little lighter more cakey. They are not a cake, they are a brownie but the difference is definitely there. I like a fudgy brownie so that will teach me not to be lazy and go get more chocolate from the corner shop!

Saying that these are delicious, dark chocolate and hazelnut makes for the quite the sophisticated brownie. If I were to make these again, not using up leftovers, I would probably put in some chunkier chopped hazelnuts for more of a texture contrast.

Oreo brownies

I have a brownie pan that is calling out to me to be put to proper use. I bought it during lent whilst I was off chocolate and so clearly no brownies were going to be made then. It did not languish in my cupboard for months however, it has had a couple of outings, first to hold my cinnamon buns and secondly for foccacia bread.

But now the time has come, I want brownies, and the pan can at last fulfil its true purpose.

I had half a pack of oreos left from baking cupcakes at the weekend, and figured waste not want not, and lobbed them in too. If you want plain brownies just leave them out!

Oreo brownies (Adapted slightly from Hummingbird bakery cookbook)

200g dark chocolate

175g butter

300g caster sugar

115g plain flour

15g cocoa powder

3 eggs

Oreos broken up (optional)

Preheat the oven to 170^oC/fan 150^oC and line you brownie pan with baking parchment.

Melt the chocolate and butter until smooth (I did this in a bowl over a pan of barely simmering water).

Once melted, remove the butter chocolate mix from the heat and stir in the sugar until fully incorporated.

Add the flour and cocoa powder to the bowl and mix until combined.

Beat the eggs lightly with a fork and add to the bowl, mix until smooth and then finally stir through the oreos.

Pour the mixture into the prepared pan and cook for 30-35 minutes until lightly flaky ontop but not overcooked.

Leave to cool in the pan then cut into chunks.

A few notes, I only had 7 oreos left but I think 10 would be a good number to go in oreo brownies.

These brownies were lovely and fudgy in the middle, and I am one of those people who like a bit of a crisper edge, however my very corner pieces were maybe a tad crisper then even I like. I think next time I would cook them in my oven for 30 minutes. Every oven varies so it may be a case of trial and error with your brownies, even so I have no doubt that they will be delicious.

Finally my recipe says to cut into 12 chunks, even as an avid brownie lover that seemed large! So I cut into 20 chunks, I have no issues with people going back for seconds!