Chocolate brownies to die for

The inspiration for this recipe came from  Lovecrumbs chocolate brownies and also a sample I received from Sopexa who are promoting  French glacé cherries. There’s a recipe leaflet you can download that’s really aimed at the catering industry as it assumes you have a Thermomix!

Glacé Cherries

Being a sucker for beautifully wrapped gifts (the cherries came in a shiny red box complete with red ribbon) I just had to try and cook with them. I guess most of us use glacé cherries in fruit cake and they may usually be a rather alarming red and look nothing like fresh cherries. As you can see these were rather lovely

I found that the texture  is perfect foil for the rich chocolate. The cake mixture is soft and the cherries give it a little bite.

This is a very versatile recipe and do not despair if you’ve not got any glacé cherries to hand. Having had a large crop of raspberries in the garden this year, I tried a second version with the fresh berries. Oh my, even more delicious!  I think my next experiment will be blueberries. It can be made equally well with gluten free flour as standard wheat flour. Use the highest percentage chocolate you can find, but there’s no need to spend a fortune on it. I found that Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference dark cooking chocolate was ideal.

Ready to eat?

What you will have to do is watch is how your oven cooks the brownies. You will have to keep an eye on things. For this brownie recipe, you really don’t want them too gooey, but not dry either. It took around 17 – 20 minutes in my fan oven.

Chocolate Brownies with Glacé Cherries or Raspberries

Ingredients

200 gr dark chocolate broken into pieces
175gr soft brown sugar (light muscovado)
200 gr butter (salted is fine) cut into chunks
3 large eggs
200  gr self raising flour (wheat or gluten free)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Pinch of salt
4 oz glace cherries cut into quarters or 6 oz fresh raspberries

Notions

Baking tin 8 x 10 or 9 x 9
Non stick baking paper
Oil (such as sunflower oil)
Saucepan or microwave
Heatproof bowl should ideally fit in the saucepan, but not reach the boiling water.

Method

1. Pre-heat your oven to 180ºC.
2. Smear the sides and bottom of your tin with oil before placing non stick baking paper on the bottom. Strew the fruit evenly over the bottom of the tin
3. Place the pieces of chocolate and butter into a bowl you can place in the microwave or melt over a pan of lightly boiling water.
4. If using the microwave, use full power for 1 minute, mix then cook for another 30 second or more until completely melted. The trick is to stop cooking when it’s not quite melted, then stir vigorously. If you’ve not got a microwave, bring about 5 cm water to the boil in a saucepan, put the bowl over the saucepan and heat until chocolate melts. Stir well
5. Beat the sugar, eggs and vanilla until frothy in a food processor or by hand.
6. Add the chocolate mixture , mix
7. Add the flour and mix well.
8. Place the mixture into the cake tin gently over the fruit and spread gently.
9. Cook for approximately 20 minutes. Check after 15, the mixture should be just set.

Last updated by Bread Baker Danielle at September 22, 2012.