I had lots of chocolate on hand, so armed with an article from the Guardian UK I tried Nigel's recipe for Very Good Chocolate Brownies.
The ingredients are the usual suspects which go into most brownies i.e. butter, sugar, chocolate, some cocoa, eggs and strangely baking powder. The method, however, is different. The recipe requires you to cream the butter and sugar till light fluffy first, then beat in the eggs followed by folding in of the chocolate and subsequently the dry ingredients. I added a dash of vanilla because that's what I like, though this is essentially supposed to be a no vanilla brownie.
The result? A really light crumbly brownie that melts on your tongue. There is no other way to describe it. While the flavour is spot on, I'm not sure I like the texture. My chocolate heart tells me that brownies should be denser and slightly chewy. Also too much work for such a simple delight. I'd be happier being able to whip a batch of brownies that required one to melt the butter, mix everything up in just one saucepan and be ready for the oven in 15 minutes flat.
Please follow the link for the full recipe of Nigel Slater's Very Good Chocolate Brownies. What I have written out here is a much abreviated version of it.
VERY GOOD CHOCOLATE BROWNIES
300g Caster Sugar
250g Butter, softened
250 Chocolate, of which 200g is to be melted and the remainder 50g chopped into pieces
3 Whole Eggs and 1 Egg Yolk, lightly beaten with fork
60g Plain Flour
1/2 teaspoon Baking Powder
60 Cocoa Powder
Dash of Vanilla
Preheat the oven to 180 Celsius. Line a 10 inch x 10 inch square tin with foil. Set aside.
Cream Butter and Sugar until light and fluffy. With the mixer still running add in the Egg bit by bit taking care that all the Egg mixture is well combined with the Butter and Sugar. Fold in melted Chocolate. Fold in Plain Flour, Baking and Cocoa Powders. Fold in Chocolate pieces.
Scrape mixture into prepared tin and bake for 20 - 30 minutes. At 20-minute mark, poke skewer through the middle. It should come out with slightly wet batter sticking to it. Remove from oven. If still very liquid, leave until the 30-minute mark and test again. It should not take more than 30 minutes to bake.
Leave to cool completely in tin before cutting into squares.
