My Chocolate Brownie Recipe 

I often bring spare baking to school with me, as there is simply no way for my household to eat it as quickly as I bake it. This means I sometimes receive requests from my friends, whether for something I haven't previously brought to school, or a favourite. More often than not, the request will be for my chocolate brownies, and although I am commonly asked for the recipe, it can be difficult to explain exactly how I make them, as my recipe has developed slightly from the original one I used over time. 

I sat down this week and thought about what recipe to share, and I realised that this is quite a complicated recipe. It doesn't require too much skill, but takes time as there are several parts to it. Despite this, they are definitely worth it, and taste absolutely delicious! 

I bake these brownies in a traditional 8" x 10" traybake tin, but I have also used a 9" x 12" tin before. It just depends on how thick you like your brownies. If you want to double the recipe (which I frequently do), you will need a much larger bowl, but also I recommend using two tins rather than one larger one, otherwise the baking isn't always even, and can leave some raw or burnt areas. I have never tried halving, but assume it would be difficult to find an appropriate tin size. The brownies do however last for up to two weeks in an airtight container (tried and tested) which is plenty of time to eat them!

Good quality chocolate is the best way to guarantee amazing brownies - I use any supermarket brand of cooking chocolate chips, but for the dark chocolate I recommend 'Dr Oetker' if you can get hold of it. Using milk and white chocolate chips makes the brownies look much better, but I'm sure they would taste great with only one.

Prep Time: 25 minutes

Cook Time: 25-30 minutes

Total Time: 55 minutes

Servings: Depending on size, makes approx. 30 brownies

Ingredients: 

• 185g unsalted butter
• 185g dark chocolate
• 85g plain flour
• 40g cocoa powder
• 3 large eggs
• 275g golden caster sugar
• approx. 50g white chocolate chips/chunks
• approx. 50g milk chocolate chips/chunks

Method

Preheat the oven to 350F/18C/160C fan. Don't forget to do this, and line your traybake tin!

Melt the butter and dark chocolate. Cut the butter and chocolate into small pieces, and melt in a glass bowl over a pan of boiling water (make sure the bowl doesn't touch the water), stirring frequently until melted. Remove from heat once melted to cool slightly.

Beat the eggs. Crack all three eggs into a large bowl, and using either a stand mixer or an electric hand whisk beat them until pale and they have doubled in volume. This is the most important step, and stops the brownies being too dense.

Mix eggs and melted chocolate/butter. Pour the chocolate/butter mix into the beaten eggs, and fold using a figure of eight motion. Take your time, as it's important not to knock too much air out.

Sieve the dry ingredients and fold in. Place the bowl on weighing scales with a sieve on top and set to zero. Pour in the flour and cocoa powder, shake to pass through the sieve, and fold using a figure of eight motion. It will look way too floury, but bear with it. Stop mixing before you think you should!

Stir in chocolate chips. Pour in the chocolate chips and fold ion, again taking care not to knock out too much air.

Bake! Pour into the lined tin and bake in a preheated oven for 25 minutes. Gently shake the tin, and if the brownie wobbles at all give it five more minutes. A skewer should come out of the centre clean when it is ready.

ENJOY!! - Allow to cool in the tin, then slice into squares and store in an airtight container for up to two weeks. I doubt they will last that long though!

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Chocolate Chip Cookies

The World's Best Chocolate Chip Cookies EVER!!

Every baker will tell you that they have their own top secret recipe for producing perfect cookies every time. This is mine. The hardest thing when baking cookies of any kind, is knowing to STOP MIXING! Many people over mix their cookie dough, resulting in their cookies flattening too much. You should also remember, that this was not the first chocolate chip cookie recipe I tried. For years I have used several other recipes, however in September I discovered this one, and I love it! 

One really great thing about this recipe is that it doesn't require chilling, so it's great for impromptu guests, and can also be frozen as dough then cooked from frozen. If you do choose to freeze it, bake pre-rolled cookie dough balls at 160 degrees Celcius (fan assisted oven), putting the cookies in the oven as it heats up, allowing them to thaw.

As far as possible in these blogs I will stick to metric measures, for some recipes even provide both metric and US customary measures, and it is also safe to assume (if I have not specified) that any oven temperature is on a fan oven. This leads me to the final point before I share my recipe with you - you know your own oven. My oven for example, cooks more on the right hand side, so I know I have to turn my cookies halfway through baking, but I have a friend whose oven is crazily hot, and she tends to halve normal cooking time. If in doubt, either follow the recipe and see how it turns out, or leave it for a few minutes less, and have a quick peek - things generally go from fine to burnt in a few minutes!

If you want to halve this recipe to make fewer cookies, just halve each measurement, and cook for 8 minutes only. Equally, this recipe works very well doubled, if you're making it in larger quantities.

If you do not have enough caster sugar, it can be replaced with any other type of sugar, but I don't recommend replacing brown sugar with caster sugar. Of course, the ideal ratio is the one in the ingredients list! Additionally, for the best cookies you should use chocolate chunks rather than chocolate chips. Ideally this should be bars of chocolate that you chop yourself into rough 1cm squares for the best taste. Typically in this recipe I used dark chocolate, but it works really well with milk chocolate too.

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Cook Time: 8-10 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

Servings: Depending on size, makes up to 36 medium sized cookies

Ingredients: 

• 230g unsalted butter, softened (1 cup)
• 200g caster sugar
• 220g soft, light, brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 large eggs
• 360g plain flour
• 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda (aka baking soda)
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 350g chocolate chunks or more!

Method

Preheat the oven to 375F/190C/170C fan. Don't forget to do this, and take your baking trays out!

Cream the butter and the sugar. This step is crucial, so make sure not to leave any chunks of butter. To cheat, you can melt the butter and mix it into the sugar, but they taste noticeably less good if you do this. 

Add the eggs and vanilla. Add one egg, then mix, the vanilla, then mix, then the second egg, to avoid curdling. Beat until fluffy. If your mixture curdles slightly, add a tablespoon of flour (and later use less), but if it is only curdled a bit, just beat it really hard for a couple of minutes and it should right itself. 

Add the dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, mix the dry ingredients, then add them to the mix, mixing only until combined, no more.

Add the chocolate! Stir in the chocolate chunks, making sure they're evenly distributed.

Roll the dough. I recommend using a tablespoon measure to create even sized cookies - taking a scoop of dough and then placing it on the tray, however a small cookie scoop works well if you have one, or simply roll into balls of the size you want!

Bake! Bake in a preheated oven for 8-10 minutes. Take them out when they are BARELY starting to turn brown - this is important. Let them sit on the baking tray for 2-3 minutes, until firm enough to move to a cooling rack.

ENJOY!! - These cookies will last up to a week in an airtight container, but I guarantee they won't last that long!

Join the fun: Please subscribe or comment below. I will be posting more book reviews soon, and some of my favourite things to bake!

Coming up soon: Stay tuned for more books and bakes!