26 May 2013

m's brownie biscuits



Every girl needs a failsafe chocolate cake recipe. I have two favourites: a dense loaf cake from Nigella Lawson, and the ‘ultimate’ brownie from, of all places, a fashion magazine. Oh, I’ve tried other recipes, but the flavour is either missing or bitter. For me, fabulous fudginess is guaranteed only by Nigella or Glamour.
 
Until now.

Now I have another chocolate favourite, thanks to my friend M. And my goodness, is it fabulous and fudgy. And – fast. Why, how? Because it is a brownie disguised as a biscuit. Yes, you read that right. It has the shiny, crackled top and the decadent squidgy texture within of a good brownie, but whereas a brownie takes around 45 minutes to bake, these little beauties take only 15. That’s right, only 15 minutes before you’re on a chocolate buzz, thinking (all at once): why didn’t I double the recipe? The diet starts tomorrow; I need a tall glass of cold milk; will I have any left to take to work? The kitchen still smells like chocolate!

Or, of course, your brain could be just blank – blissed out on brownie biscuits (note the plural).

Thank you, M!

Brownie biscuits
Adapted from an Observer recipe emailed by M. I halved the original recipe (now I wish I hadn’t!) because I blanched at the thought of using almost half a kilo of chocolate in one recipe. Though as M wisely said, ‘Just ignore the amount of chocolate and focus on how they taste; that’s how I approach these cookies’. Oh, and I think these are best warm, so do zap them in the microwave for a few seconds to get that chocolate all fudgy again. Made ten.
  • Preheat your oven to 170 and prep a baking tray.
  • A little further prep: chop 100 gms dark cooking chocolate into chunks and set aside for later.
  • Put 25 gms butter and another 100 gms dark cooking chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water and melt gently, stirring until smooth. Remove from heat.
  • Whisk together 1 egg, 85 gms light brown sugar and ¼ tspn vanilla until combined.
  • Pour in the melted chocolate mix and whisk again to combine (a free standing beater comes in handy here).
  • Fold thru about 40 gms plain flour, ¼ tspn salt and ¼ tspn baking powder, then add the chopped chocolate (be sure to lick the spoons and bowls for this one!).
  • Drop spoonfuls onto your baking tray then bake for 15 minutes; the tops will look shiny and will crack apart. They’ll still be soft when you remove them from the oven so leave to cool on the trays for a few minutes before transferring to a wire rack. Or into your mouth.

12 comments:

  1. Anonymous27 May, 2013

    These look delicious. I suppose there's none left.

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    Replies
    1. :-) sorry! i knew i should have made a double batch.

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  2. thank you for blogging about this amazing recipe!

    Next time, try some milk and white chocolate chunks. I use dark chocolate (70% is perfect) in the wet mixture and stir through some additional 70% and some milk and white chunks. The addition of white chocolate is wonderful and looks pretty too.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. THANK YOU for the recipe!
      i'm not a huge fan of white choclate but i can imagine how they'd have visual appeal. and hey, i have faith in your recommendations!

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  3. OK, this recipe looks like just the thing to kick me off my chocolate ban, and get stuck right back into heavy duty consumption! I'm already trying to work out how to get some dutch cocoa into the recipe... lost cause.

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  4. sue, life is too short to have a chocolate ban!
    i've never had luck cooking with cocoa; even the expensive brands taste 'dirty' to me. so this is a great recipe because it is FULL of chocolate in everyway. so off that ban and onto baking brownie biscuits!!

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  5. Oh please, save the next batch for me! Stunning

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    Replies
    1. i have orders mounting up! i will do for sure, paula!

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  6. Those look delicious!! btw, I added a list of blogs I follow to my website and you're on there!

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    Replies
    1. woo - thank you, jules! i really need to return the favour :-)

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  7. Brownie biscuits seem like a genius invention. I am going to have to give them a go sometime, I don't have a fail safe chocolate biscuit recipe yet.

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    Replies
    1. hi lizzie! i hope you like them as much as i do. they are pretty amazing!

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