Brownies – The Hectic Cook

I’m a bit confused. It doesn’t take much. Bear with me on this one. Can I call these ‘triple’ chocolate fudge brownies? It’s the brownie bit that’s confusing me. These brownies contain 2 different types of chocolate chunks, plus the chocolate of the brownie. Hence why I’ve gone for the word ‘triple’. But is that latter chocolate already a given? Because brownie is already chocolate? Am I misleading people by calling these Triple Chocolate Fudge Brownies? Should they just be ‘double’? Confusion reigns.

No matter though, these are pretty god damn chocolatey brownies. It’s a really straight-forward recipe, no need even to melt chocolate. The chocolatey-ness of the brownie comes purely from the cocoa. So don’t skimp on the cocoa. Use good stuff. I do tend to use Cadbury Bournville Cocoa because I know it’s good, although I’ve just bought Asda’s own, so I’ll let you know how that pans out. But whatever you do, don’t use drinking chocolate or the like. This needs the chocolate hit you’ll only get from good quality cocoa.

Ingredients (makes 9 large squares)

350g (2 cups) sugar*
75g (3/4 cup) cocoa powder
50g (1/3 cup) plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
4 eggs, beaten
220g (2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted
2 tsp vanilla extract
100g (1 cup) white chocolate, chopped into chunks
100g (1 cup) milk chocolate, chopped into chunks

Note:

* I tend to use mostly granulated sugar in my recipes now. I haven’t been able to find any difference compared to caster sugar here, and I recently discovered it’s a third of the price!

1. Preheat your oven to 170°C (fan) / 325°F. Line and grease an 8″ square baking tin, or a tin of similar volume (I tend to use greaseproof paper and groundnut oil, but vegetable oil or butter will do fine).

2. In a large mixing bowl stir together the sugar, cocoa, flour and baking powder.

3. Add the eggs, melted butter and vanilla, and mix well until thoroughly combined.

4. Add the chopped chocolate chunks and mix well.

Note:

I actually ended up using this white chocolate with cookie in it:

This is purely because it’s what Asda substituted my bar of white chocolate for. I think I’d stick to straightforward white chocolate in the future though as the little bits of cookie, once baked, are rather hard (my poorly tooth will testify to that – probably the Universe’s punishment for sneaking brownie). You can obviously add any chocolate as your chocolate chunks, but the mix of white and milk, I think, is a winning combo as they offset the rich chocolatey-ness of the brownie perfectly.

5. Pour your brownie mix into the prepare tin and level.

6. Bake in your preheated oven for about 40-45 minutes. Remove and leave to cool completely before cutting into squares.

If when you go to cut your brownies up you find them a bit too gooey in the middle, just chuck them in the fridge and let them firm up. They’ll then be lovely and fudgy which is no bad thing in a brownie. Just store them in the fridge.

How simple was that? And the result is a gorgeously fudgy and chocolatey brownie, filled with chunks of milk and white chocolate, with that lovely crisp top you expect of a good brownie.

Happy cooking!

If you like a good traybake why not give my Mars Bar Slice or Chewy Flapjack a go? Both really simple but deliciously good!

Erm what diet…?

I was first introduced to these brownies by my lovely friend Sarah, who shares both my passion for cooking, and my love of eating. This sometimes gets us into trouble. A typical ‘Girls Night’ usually includes a bottle (or two) of Prosecco, several tubs of Ben & Jerry’s, and multiple bags of Cadbury chocolate. She’s such a bad influence…

I was, however very grateful for this introduction. The original idea was that of a blogger by the name of The Londoner (the woman is a culinary mastermind). The name comes from the fact that these brownies are oh so easy, and a good bit filthy. And boy are they easy. Now, I like to make life simpler at every opportunity. However, I’m a bit of a baking snob, and think the instant mixes you can buy from the supermarkets are a waste of money. Baking is generally not that difficult, and not actually a great deal more effort than these mixes require.

However. In the case of Slutty Brownies, much of the attraction to the recipe – apart from the promise of a truly decadent cookie/brownie combo – was the use of the instant mixes. The original recipe is a layer of cookie dough, a layer of Oreo cookies, and a layer of chocolate brownie. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t make the cookie and brownie from scratch. If that’s what you want to do, go for your life (I have a damn good cookie recipe, and an equally good brownie recipe on this blog). I just couldn’t be bothered. That’s a fair amount of work, and the whole allure of this slice is its simplicity.

This recipe has been added to a little – it was Sarah’s suggestion to add the caramel (see what I mean about a bad influence??). And I had a tub of Marshmallow Fluff so I had to throw that in for good measure. Feel free to leave these out if you’d rather (although why you would…?).

Ingredients

1 packet of cookie mix
1 packet of brownie mix
2 packets of Oreos (double stuffed are even better!)
1/2 tin of caramel
‘some’ marshmallow fluff
1-2 eggs
oil/butter

1. Preheat your oven to 170°C/325°F/Gas 3. Make up the cookie mix as per the packet instructions, but add a little more butter/oil (depending on make). About 5g/1tsp more will suffice, enough to keep the cookie moist as it is baked for longer.

Also add about 5ml more water. I used a 275g packet mix from Morrisons, to give you an idea of quantity.

2. Line an 8×8″ tin (or equivalent size) with greaseproof paper (i.e. place paper in the tin, nothing fancy).

3. Flatten the cookie dough into the tin with your hands. It’ll be quite thin, but that’s how it should be.

4. Arrange the Oreos on top of the cookie dough. Sixteen Oreos will fit perfectly in an 8×8″ tin, so requires 2 packets. If you just have one packet, space the biscuits out a bit more.

5. Splurge the caramel over the Oreos – I filled the holes between biscuits then spread over the top. Half a tin will be enough.

6. I then added dods of marshmallow fluff. This was pretty superfluous, you don’t need to. But I have a serious addiction to marshmallow, so this seemed like a good idea (and it was). It’s completely up to you though if you follow this.

7. In the same bowl as before (lets not make more washing up than we need to) make the brownies exactly as per the packet instructions – mine required 30ml of oil, 45ml of water and 1 egg).

Cover the caramel coated Oreos with the brownie mix, smooth it over and than pop this into your preheated oven for 30 minutes.

If at all possible, leave the brownie in the tin until it has completely cooled, then pop it in the fridge for at least an hour to firm up before trying to cut it. Alternatively you can just go at it with a spoon straight from the oven. Add some ice-cream and you have a winning dessert!

The first time I made this I actually had to make half with caramel and half without. Have I mentioned the Husband’s weird dislike of caramel? Anyway, in my humble opinion the caramel takes it to a whole different level (thank you Sarah!).

Happy cooking!

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Tag: Brownies

Triple Chocolate Fudgy Brownies

Ingredients (makes 9 large squares)

Slutty Brownies

Ingredients