Cooking for friends is fun and lovely, especially when your friends are chocoholics 🙂
Last night I had two friends coming over for a small dinner party. After eating a 2kg roast chicken, I served my homemade brownies (totally made from scratch). Even though the consumption of the big bird made us really full, we still had some space left for a piece of rich, gooey but heavenly chocolaty brownies. I have to admit they were a hit considering the comment my friend made after munching the second piece of brownies:
‘It’s so good to know the cause of your death!’ … and we all laughed, laughed and laughed …
Please note: Too much chocolate is never good but a small piece of good 70% cocoa dark chocolate is a healthier option 🙂
Enjoy your life and let chocolate release your happiness hormone!
Recipe adopted from: Cook with Jamie by Jamie Oliver
Dark Chocolate brownies with nuts and cherries
You will need:
250 g butter
200 g dark chocolate such as (make sure you use a very good quality chocolate such as Lindt Excellence 70% Cocoa Dark), broken up
150 g pitted cherries on syrup, drained
150 g walnuts
80 g cocoa powder, sifted
65 g plain flour, sifted
1 tsp baking powder, sifted
350 g caster sugar
4 eggs
strawberries, creme fraiche or vanilla ice creams, to serve
Directions:
Preheat the oven to 180 ℃.
Line a rectangular baking tin with a baking paper.
In a bowl over some simmering water, melt the butter and chocolate and mix until smooth. Add the cherries and nuts. Stir all together.
In another bowl, mix the cocoa powder, flour, baking powder, sugar and add the hot chocolate mixture. Stir well. Beat the eggs and mix in until well combined and smooth.
Pour the mixture into the baking tin. Bake for 25 -30 minutes. Let it rest in a tin for a couple of hours before cutting into pieces. The brownies should be gooey inside; for a slightly drier version bake a bit longer.
These brownies rock!