Triple Chocolate Nutty Brownies

I was flicking through my recipe photos when I realised that lots of my recipes contain fruit. I love fruit - especially in a crumble or a cake (or even better, both combined) - but there are some times when fruit will just not do.

Sometimes, you just need some chocolate.

These brownies were among the first things I ever baked. The basic recipe comes from a Marks and Spencer's children's cookbook, with an average of three exclamation marks per page (I'm not joking). 

I hadn't made them in a while but I felt that the time had come. Inspired by wonderful recipes such as this (which was impractical due to the price of raspberries in winter), I tweaked around with my recipe a little bit, adding white chocolate chips and macadamia nuts for a little bit of extra texture.

I'm aware that macadamia nuts are expensive and therefore not for everyday consumption; but you could substitute hazelnuts or walnuts if you wanted, or leave them out all together! To be perfectly honest, I don't usually put nuts in my brownies, so these are a bit of a step away from my comfort zone.

They're not cake-like, but they're not totally gooey either; a happy medium, with a bit of a squidgy texture. Mmmm! 

 Start by melting dark chocolate with some butter.

Measure out the sugar, beat some eggs and chop the chocolate.

Set them all out in neat glass bowls and pretend you're Joy the Baker.

Once the chocolate and butter is melted, stir in the sugar. Add the eggs and flour.

Finally, mix in the chocolate and nuts. (Try not to lick the screen.)

Bake for twenty(-ish) minutes and keep your hands off whilst they cool.

Eat warm with ice-cream, cold with a glass of milk, or take greedy spoonfuls out of the tin.

Is that far away enough from fruit? 

Triple Chocolate Nut Brownies
175g dark chocolate
175g butter
250g golden caster sugar
pinch of salt
3 large eggs
115g plain flour
2 tsp vanilla extract
50g white chocolate chunks
50g milk chocolate chunks
50g chopped macadamia nuts

1. Preheat the oven to 180/gas mark 4. Grease the cake tin and line it with non-stick baking paper.

2. Place the dark chocolate and butter in a bowl. Melt over a pan of simmering water, stirring until smooth. Remove pan from heat. Cool slightly.

3. Add the sugar and salt to the melted chocolate. Beat the eggs in a bowl and add them gradually to the mixture.

4. Sift the flour into the mixture and beat until smooth. Add the vanilla extract and stir in the white and milk chocolate chunks and the macadamia nuts.

5. Scrape the mixture into the tin. Bake for 20-25 minutes until the top is pale brown and the middle is soft. 

6. Allow the brownies to cool in the tin before cutting into pieces. Remove from the tin and serve with ice cream or cream.