Lent is almost over, and chocolate will be back on the menu. I plan to break my fast with molé at El Centro and a chocolate brownie at home in bed.
Chocolate Brownies are pretty amazing things, but if you add Nutella to the mix, well, you can infer that things are going to get even better from a chocolate point of view. If you gave up chocolate for Lent and are jumping back into the world of coco again, believe me, this chocolate brownie is the way to do it.
7 oz chocolate, which is usually 2 bars 1 stick of butter (4 oz) 1 ½ cups of sugar (12 oz) 2 tsp vanilla essence or espresso
4 eggs
1 ½ cup flour (6 oz)
¼ tsp baking powder
1/2 cup of chocolate chips and ¼ cup white chocolate chips (4 oz total) (I usually buy chocolate and chop it into chips because it’s not always easy to find good quality chocolate chips, and cheap ones result in not great brownies)
Approx ¼ cup Nutella
- Pre heat the oven to 350 (180C)
- Put the Nutella in the fridge to firm up and make it easy to scoop
- Melt the chocolate and butter in a bowl over a pan of simmering water or in the microwave
Whisk in the sugar until the mixture is fluffy- Add the vanilla or espresso and the baking powder
- Stir in the eggs and flour alternately until the mixture combines
- Dust the white chocolate chips with a handful of flour and mix in
- Pour into a buttered 8 inch square tin (I sometimes use a foil tin because it’s easier to pop the brownies out and there’s no washing up)
- Spoon out tsps of Nutella and drop into the brownie mixture, evenly spaced through the pan
Bake for about 40 minutes, check after 35, and be prepared to go to 45, but keep checking because you want soft moist brownies, not hard cakey ones- If your oven is unreliable like mine, turn the tin a few times to get more even cooking
- Cool, then cut into squares (or eat warm with ice cream – bliss)
- Decorate with a dusting of icing sugar