Brownies!

Anita comes back to Oxford tomorrow, so I thought I'd bake her something to welcome her back. I think I've done cookies for too many occasions already this year, so I thought I'd try doing something different and slightly more elaborate. Time to give brownies a go methinks!

Chocolate and Nut Brownies
Ingredients

• 25g Hazelnuts, very roughly chopped
  
• 25g Almonds, very roughly chopped
• 60g Caster sugar
  
• 110g Plain chocolate (50% cocoa)
• 125g Better quality plain chocolate (72% cocoa), roughly chopped
  
• 110g Butter
• 110g Plain flour
• 210g Soft brown sugar
• 2 Eggs, beaten
• 1 tsp Vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp Baking powder (I didn't actually have baking powder, so I used a roughly 2:1 ratio cream of tartar and bicarbonate of soda mixture)
  

Method

1. Dissolve the caster sugar in a little hot water and heat in a saucepan to ~160C (This is above the Hard Crack stage but below Caramel - I think if you dare, heating it all the way to Caramel will give a better result, but I really didn't fancy overheating it and having to start again) and then remove from the heat.
2. Stir in the chopped nuts and set aside.
3. Melt the 50% cocoa chocolate and butter in a double boiler.
4. Remove from the heat and sift in the flour, brown sugar and baking powder.
5. Once cool enough, beat in the eggs and vanilla extract.
6. Stir in the chopped chocolate and the caramelised nuts.
7. Pour into two greased sandwich cake tins and bake at 180C/Gas Mark 4 for ~25 mins.
8. Allow to cool for 10 minutes before removing from the tin.

Here they are straight from the oven:


And a photo taken without flash:I think they look pretty darned good personally! As I removed them from the tin, I snaffled a little bit of the dough that had stuck to the base and had a sneaky taste too - the mixture is really, really good! I think the brown sugar lends a really nice depth to the flavour and it is rather chocolatey too, which I gather is the main point of brownies (though I must confess, I've never really understood why people like them quite as much as they seem to). Anyway, hopefully the nuts will work too and hopefully Anita will like them!