Guest Writer's Article 3: Chocolate Cherry Chunk Brownies

This weeks article is from a dear friend of mine who takes baking to the next level and beyond. Nigella move out the way you have some serious competition. Please don't forget to go to my facebook page at the end of the month and vote for your favourite article.

These look absolutely yummy. Definately one in my books to be making soon! Thanks Missy for Sharing your recipe with us!! PS this is not a recipe if you are seriously watching your weight!! 

Chocolate Cherry Chunk Brownies

Have you ever had a recipe in your head that sits and bugs you – nagging you until you make it? Well I have had an alteration of an existing recipe in my head for ages now, so when Abz asked if I wanted to do a guest post I jumped at the chance. Now I had an excuse to make these extremely decadent, totally un-dietworthy pieces of deliciousness. So this is what I did: I took an already awesome brownie recipe and added chunks of white chocolate and chopped up cherries. Already sounding good? I thought so too! But let me get into the actual recipe.

These are the ingredients you’ll need: Flour, castor sugar, muscovado sugar (treacle or dark brown sugar can be used instead if that’s all you can find), butter, eggs, vanilla essence, baking powder, dark chocolate, white chocolate, golden syrup, cherries and cocoa. I didn’t mention that you won’t find this recipe in a diet book, didn’t I?

To start with, take the castor sugar, muscovado sugar, butter, dark chocolate and syrup and put it into a glass bowl – one that will be able to handle being in the microwave. Like so:

Microwave the wet ingredients for about a minute, then stir everything together. If it isn’t all melted together give it another thirty seconds or so and stir it together. Everything should have melted and there shouldn’t be any lumps or dodgy bits. It should look something like this when it’s done:

Leave that to cool. At this point, switch your oven on to start warming up - 180˚C. Then mix together the eggs and the vanilla essence:

 

Sieve together the dry ingredients (flour, cocoa and baking powder):

Chop up the white chocolate – as small as you like your lumps – and throw this into your dry ingredients.

  

Also chop up your cherries. You’ll want about a cupful of chopped cherries. Don’t chop them too fine, as you still want to bite into a yummy cherry chunk. I find it easier to chop the cherries if they are still slightly frozen – just be aware that this might make the cooking time a minute or so longer.

By this point the chocolate mixture should have cooled down quite a bit – if you can hold the glass bowl without worrying about burning yourself you can move ahead with this next step. Mix the egg/vanilla mixture into the chocolate mixture – the mixture will look a touch disturbing but I promise you it will taste good in the end! This is what it should look like:

Now mix the chocolate mixture into the dry ingredients – do it gently with a spatula. Throw the cherries in at the same time.

 

Now just fold everything together gently and pour it into a prepared tin. I used a round tin with a removable bottom that is about 30cm in diameter. I also put a piece of wax paper on the bottom of the tin to make removal easier. A square tin is better for brownies, but I don’t have one, so I used a round one. Feel free to use any tin that makes you happy – you just want the mixture to be about 3-4cm in depth.

Cook it for about 25 minutes – the edges will come away from the tin, and the top of the cake will go wrinkly. Don’t bother putting a skewer in – due to the gooiness (is that a word?) in the centre it will never come away clean. That’s how you know it’s a good brownie. Either leave it to cool and then remove it from the pan (carefully!) or cut slivers and serve immediately. Either way, serve it with a cherry sauce and vanilla icecream if you want to taste true heaven. (to make the cherry sauce, use the rest of your frozen cherries, put them into a small saucepan over a medium heat with a little bit of sugar (1-2 tablespoons or to taste) and a squeeze of lemon juice and let it come to a boil and bubble for 3 or so minutes. Final product:

 

Now – go quickly and make these! I promise you won’t be disappointed… Just one note – due to the cherries these are somewhat more crumbly then the traditional brownie. If you don’t want to add the white chocolate and cherries you will still have an amazing brownie. So you basically get two recipes for the price of one here! Enjoy!

Recipe all in one go:

Ingredients:

100g butter

175g castor sugar

75g muscovado sugar

125g dark chocolate

1 tbsp golden syrup

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla essence/extract

100g plain flour

3 ½ tablespoons cocoa

½ tsp baking powder

100g white chocolate, chopped

1 cup chopped cherries. (not tinned – use fresh or frozen. If fresh, de-stone them)

Method:

Put the butter, sugars, syrup and dark chocolate into a microwave proof bowl and microwave until everything is melted together. (About 1 ½ minutes, stopping after a minute to stir.)

Beat together the eggs and vanilla essence. Also start the oven heating to 180˚C.

Sift together the flour, cocoa powder and baking powder. Add the chopped white chocolate.

If the chocolate has cooled down a bit, add the egg/vanilla mix. Stir to combine, then add this mixture to the flour. Add the chopped cherries and fold it all together.

Pour into a prepared pan and bake for about 25 minutes, or until you can a)smell it, b)the edges have come away from the side, and c) the top has gone a bit wrinkly. All of these signs together will tell you that it is ready.

Serve it with a cherry sauce and vanilla ice cream.

Enjoy!