Sludgiest fudgiest dark chocolate brownie

from my wife’s blog, cocoa + cotton

“Tita estaba como agua para chocolate, porque hervía de rabia.” Como Agua Para Chocolate, Laura Esquivel

Extremely sludgy and fudgy (the giveaway’s in the title) these really can’t much masquerade as the delicate tea-time morsel for taking small graceful bites while sitting primly in your prettiest dress at a cocktail party. Let’s be truthful.. you’ll never get a clean bite. They’re far more tailored to the final course of the sumptuous evening feast – the grab a spoon, ladle on some cream with a dollop of ice cream, and dig in type of chocolate brownie. A definite pudding brownie and far too delicious for anyone’s good.

As with all chocolate brownie recipes and most puddings, these can obviously be adapted in so many ways to create other equally winning results, whether you want to stuff them with white chocolate chips or crumbled up Oreos or both, but this recipe alone is plenty decadent enough to achieve a dinner table of very happy guests. 

Leftovers will keep for 2-3 days (or more likely 5 minutes)

what you’ll need

Equipment:

• 9 inch brownie tin like this
• medium saucepan we use this range from GreenPan
• sieve
• whisk or electric stand mixer we use this KitchenAid

INGREDIENTS

Sludgiest fudgiest dark chocolate brownie: makes 16 good sized brownies

• 185g lightly salted butter 
• 185g dark chocolate the darker the better we like, but any you prefer
• 85g plain flour
• 40g cocoa powder
• 3 large eggs
• 275 g caster sugar

If you want to add white chocolate chips, add a quantity of around 100 grams to this mixture.

METHOD

to cook:

1. Preheat your oven to 180°, 160°c fan, 350F, Gas Mark 4.
2. Melt the butter and dark chocolate in a saucepan. If using an induction hob you can put the chocolate directly into the saucepan and use the L1 setting. If you don’t have induction, use the bain marie method to avoid chocolate seizing as it is almost impossible to coax it back to liquid state once this happens.
3. Sift flour and cocoa together into a medium size bowl
4. Beat eggs and sugar in your electric stand mixer or by hand until thick and mousse-like
5. Fold your flour mix into your egg mix.
6. Once cooled, your melted chocolate mix can be added to the batter. Fold in and mix together until fully combined.
7. Line baking tin and grease sides with a little butter to prevent sticking (I do this whether I’m using a non-stick tin or not. The only time you can be really confident of not needing to grease or line is if you’re using a silicone pan)
8. Pour the batter into your 9 inch tin and level out.
9. Bake for 35-40 minutes (or until a testing skewer comes out clean)
10. Allow to rest for 5 minutes before running a knife round the rim, slicing the brownies into whatever size bites you prefer, and releasing them from the tin one by one. We make 16 from this recipe.

To finish:

Serve either hot from the oven or once cold, alongside a pot of cream and a good helping of vanilla ice cream.