Brownies

I have mixed feelings about brownies. When they're good, they can be an easy crowd-pleasing snack. When they're bad they can be either rock hard or so gooey that they feel uncooked.

This recipe satisfies everything that I want in a brownie; rich and chewy.

If you don't like coffee you can replace it with extra flour as it does give the brownies quite the caffeine kick! Use as fine a grind of coffee as you can.

Ingredients

200g 70% cocoa chocolate
115g butter
40g cocoa powder
3 large eggs
285g granulated sugar
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp salt
200g plain flour
28g ground coffee


Preheat oven to 170C.

Melt both chocolate and butter together in pan on the hob, stirring frequently and removing from heat as soon as it's melted. Stir in cocoa powder.

Whisk eggs, sugar, vanilla and salt together in a mixing bowl.

Add the melted chocolate mixture and beat well.

Add the flour and stir until just blended.

Pour into an 8 inch square buttered pan.

Bake for 35-40 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the middle comes away with a couple of just-moist crumbs attached. You want the centre to be cooked, but not over-cooked.

Cool on a wire rack and cut. You can easily get 16 brownies from this.