Brownies

Whilst I usually like to challenge myself in my baking sometimes it's nice to just kick back and knock something pretty simple up. Today, I decided to make brownies, and whilst I don't think I've ever actually made them before, they are ridiculously simple to make. I've definitely had enough practice at tasting the little devils so it's time I branched out and sampled some home-made ones.

I explored my many baking books for recipes however most of them tried to be a bit too 'fancy pantsy' and added nuts and all sorts to the mix whereas I wanted to do pretty plain and simple ones (plus it was too cold to go out to the shops so I had to stick with what I had in the cupboards!) So I found a few recipes on the internet and eventually went with one from a cadbury's website. However, most brownie recipes will use only dark chocolate in the mix but I decided to substitute some of the dark chocolate for milk chocolate  (about 110g of dark, 65g of milk.)  I did this for two reasons: I don't particularly like dark chocolate and sometimes find some shop bought brownies too bitter and because, as mentioned before, I was too warm and comfy inside to venture to the shops and I only had 110 grams of dark chocolate left.

As far as making the brownies goes - a child could could make them. Once you have melted the chocolate and butter its just beating things, mixing things and pouring things. Easy!

Before putting the brownies in the oven, I sprinkled some white chocolate that I had cut up as small as possible on top - partly as an experiment and partly to get rid of it as I didn't really have enough left  to do anything of substance with.

When removing the from the oven, I was a bit worried that I had over baked them but once I had left them to cool, turned them out and cut them up I realised that the insides were still nice and soft and fudgey.

Even though I'm on the common January diet that hits most people who have over eaten at Christmas, I had to give them a try, I'm not sure anyone in the world would have the will power to not give fresh brownies a go. I was worried they might be a bit too sweet with the addition of the milk chocolate but they are not at all, even the boyfriend who doesn't really have a sweet tooth ( more about that here: http://onegirloneoven.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/way-to-boys-heart.html) approved of them.

This recipe may be simple but it just proves that sometimes the simplest things are the best.