The very best gooey, fudge, mud chocolate brownies and recipe!

While busy exploring Twitter this week, I developed an instant obsession with photos of Quay’s 8 texture chocolate cake that adorned Reemski’s profile page (and check out her blog at http://www.tummyrumble.net/). The gooey, soft chocolate layers quickly prompted me to dig out my own chocolate brownie recipe that I had adapted from Nigel Slater’s “Very Good Chocolate Brownies” recipe. Here’s a teaser of the end result.

The ingredients required are:

300g brown caster sugar
250g softened butter
250g of the best chocolate you can get (darker is better and aim for ~70% cocoa solids)
3 large eggs plus the yolk of another egg
100g plain flour (Nigel uses 60g)
60g of good cocoa powder
1tspn baking powder
Optional: Pecan, macadamia or walnuts

The steps involved are simple:
1) Preheat the oven to 180C

2) Line a large baking tin (23cm) with baking paper

3) Cream the sugar and butter with a mixer until white and fluffy

4) Melt 200g of the chocolate and chop the remaining 50g into small pieces or “gravel” put this aside.

5) Lightly beat the egg mixture and introduce to the creamed sugar/butter slowly with the beater running slowly until combined.

6) Pour in the molten chocolate and fold with a spoon. Add in the chopped chocolate bits.

7) Sift in the dry ingredients and fold in with spoon gently as to not knock any air out.

Now pour it gently into the baking tin and bake for about 30-35mins. It is ready when you stick a fork in and it comes out a bit sticky but without any raw batter. It will be soft and solidifies a bit when it cools so don’t panick if they seem squishy.

I enjoy these best warm at the bottom of a bowl of vanilla ice cream. Yum!