Looking for foolproof recipes? You are in the right place as I do all my baking with the child nowadays when she has special requests. Imagine all the distractions, a baking spatula and lots of ‘I think that is ENOUGH mixing’. This baking ‘challenge’ came along in a very casual conversation about desserts with my 3 year old, and she just slotted ‘Mummy, can we make our own chocolate brownies?’. I promised her that we will do this joyful activity soon and this child never forgets.
‘Mummy, do you remember you said we could bake brownies together?’ ( x 15 )
I stumbled upon this recipe by Dini, The Flavor Bender (yes, I actually googled The Best Chocolate Brownies) and boy oh boy, its a WINNER. I have tried quite a few brownie recipes but there was nothing to shout about .. this one is incredibly LUSH and FUDGY. I have finally found my go to recipe for brownies. So, share I will!
We tweaked the recipe slightly as we had a chocolate emergency! I couldn’t locate any dark chocolate much to the toddler’s delight. We had to open bars and bars of little Hersheys and Cadbury milk chocolate. You can tell its a kids idea to mix chocolate .. as if a chocolate brownie will not be ‘chocolatey’ enough.
This recipe calls for warm melted butter. Oh I love butter, please even my child is obsessed with butter. She was eating chunks of butter before we even got started.
Not as many pictures of us actually making the brownie mix as its no joke trying to bake something edible and trying to micro manage the child and a sleeping baby.
We used bar type moulds (oh they are clever!) as I never look forward to slicing them and then cleaning the knife blade after every cut. My edges are never neat and clean anyways and always lob – sided . Whoops. Well well, I found the perfect trick that the child really liked as well. ‘Brownie blocks’ eh?
I like to grease and flour my moulds before adding batter. Added security measure although you can also skip this step and make sure its properly cooled before popping them out.
Seriously, just look at that beautiful brownie crust. Its just so nice and crackly and very inviting. ‘Come and sink your teeth in me, hurry.’
Peek at the serration from the mould. It was perfect for playgroup. It became bite-sized in seconds. No hassle 🙂
Look at the child’s chocolate choice. It made the brownie very enjoyable in fact. The Hershey’s Cookie And Creme Bar was gooey and crunchy and a really nice addition I must add. (It was a ‘ran out of dark chocolate’ emergency if you recall)
227g butter
170g brown sugar (1/2 cup)
170g white sugar (1/2 cup)
1/4 teaspoon salt
Melt butter. We used a bowl over a saucepan of boiling water, you can also use the microwave. Use very warm butter. Add sugars and salt whilst it is warm and combine till you have a smooth mixture.
3 eggs
1 yolk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Add the eggs and vanilla to the mixture. Whisk in the eggs until they have been incorporated into the butter sugar mix. You can use a hand mixer (much easier), whisk the butter-sugar-egg mix until the batter becomes pale in color. We used lots of ‘manual strength’. Just a spatula and a whisk 🙂
128g flour (2/3 cup)
80g cocoa powder (2/3 cup)
Sift and add into mixture. Mix until just combined. This is where I have to reinforce to the child that there should be no more mixing
226g ‘dark chocolate chunks’ ( We used 90g milk choc and 136g Hersheys )
We threw this in last, gave the mixture a little swirl with the spatula and poured the batter in to the mould.
Bake for 35 minutes at 176°C (350F).
Till the next bake or restaurant review?
Lots of love. xx
Baked By Mummy Iris 