Who can say no to a brownie?  Go on – put your hands up!  I can’t that’s for sure.  I remember when I was little my sister used to whip up a batch on a Saturday afternoon and we would gorge ourselves silly.  The big problem though was they were always way better once they had cooled for an hour or two in the fridge.  It seemed to bring out their fudgy chocolatey goodness so much more but the wait was just agonising. My sister used to use the recipe in The Joy of Cooking but when we had a dinner party recently, I made these and they were truly, hands down, the best brownies I’ve ever had.

If you are going to make them (and make sure you have others coming round or you will indeed be tempted to eat the whole batch) two pieces of advice – use the correct size pan (it makes the cooking time accurate and you won’t be tempted to overcook them) and do not scrimp on the quality of the chocolate.  I used Valrhona which was wonderful but pricey.  The way I figure it,there are only a handful of ingredients so you want to make sure that the chocolate is really good quality.  That being said I have made them on Coles-brand Belgian chocolate and they were still pretty good.

Brownies from Rose Bakery

250 g butter

250 g roughly chopped dark chocolate

6 eggs

380 g caster sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

150 g plain flour

pinch of salt

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C.  Butter a 20 x 28cm baking tin and line it with baking paper.  Put chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl, and place over a saucepan of simmering water and cook over a low heat until melted and smooth.  Remove from heat and cool slightly.

In another bowl, beat the eggs with the sugar and add the vanilla extract.  Beat for only a few minutes till the mixture is well combined and just beginning to froth – it must not get to the light white stage.

Pour in melted chocolate and butter and finally fold in the flour and salt.  Pour mixture into prepared baking tin and bake for about 25 mins.  Be very careful not to over bake – brownies must be a little moist in the middle and they will continue to cook once it is taken out of the oven.  Cool (if you can bear to wait) and dust with dark Dutch processed cocoa. Enjoy!  And don’t call me complaining when you can’t fit into your jeans anymore – consider yourselves warned.