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A very Happy Diwali to all my readers, friends and family ! Well this post was intended to be posted before Diwali and it didnt make it to my space for various reasons. We travelled to Brussels and Amsterdam the day after Diwali. Our first long trip in a year and half. It was all hullabaloo in the process of packing and putting things away for the 5 day trip and our excitement of meeting our friends after two years. So much of chit chatting , non stop bantering ,insane gigling and a lot of antics is what happens when friends catch up after years.


Aah look , talking of the fabulous trip, I am going astray from the brownie bake and Diwali . We had a come together for Diwali ,something that we have been doing over the past 6 years, a week before the festival of lights. I wanted to carry the Brownies to treat the little ones and my grown-up friends.. In my previous post about the Orange Marmalade Cake, there was a mention about this brownies. I reiterate again, there was a lot of self thrust that I had planned for self all in a day.


Baking , Pictures and above all treating my food porn friends of all age group from 5 to 45 !These brownies were a star for the evening and a purpose well served . A happy ending to a wearisome Day!


I am calling these brownies my favorite and I have a reason behind it. With no fancy gadget , no patience to wait for the butter to come to room temperature and more , I just wanted some recipe that called for melting the butter, chocolate and all together in a pot and then mixing the flour and blah!!! This recipe did exactly what i wanted . I started my wild goose chase for an hour or soo , everywhere and whereever I felt the ingredients called for melting the butter and chocolate , I was game. Hardly could I boil down to one recipe where I have all the available ingredients in my pantry . Finally my chase was over and I came across my favourite recipe for Brownie at Smitten Kitchen!!A blog that requires no introduction. Every bakers bible and bakopedia. My inspiration for the first click on this page is from a blog thingwemake.


These brownies are absolutely fuzz free, chocolat' y , bitter sweet and everything that you are looking for in a brownie.. An absolute winner for an under one hour product . The recipe specially called for unsweetened chocolate, but I have just used dark chocolate with 85% cocoa.Guess we have talked a lot about it and lets head to the recipe head- straight .

MY FAVOURITE BROWNIES Recipe adapted from Smitten Kitchen Prep Time: 10 minutes Baking Time : 25-30 minutes Total Time: 40 minutes Yields: 25 squares INGREDIENTS: 85gm Plain Flour 85gm Dark Chocolate, roughly chopped 115 gm Unsalted Butter 265gm Granulated Sugar 2 Large eggs 1 tsp Vanilla Essence DIRECTIONS: Preheat the fan assisted oven to 350 F, gas mark 4. Line a 9” Baking pan with a parchment paper, extending it all the way up. This will help us to pull the paper out of the pan once the brownie cools down.     Prepare a double boiler, by placing a small sauce pan/ bowl over a pan of hot water. Fill the bottom pan with 1” of water and allow it to boil. Reduce to simmer. Break the chocolate pieces into small equal pieces and add them along with the butter to the small sauce pan that sits on the pan of water. Stir them until they melt. This process will only take a couple of minutes.  If you are looking to understand how to handle chocolates, read my post on Homemade Chocolates  Whisk the egg, one at a time, followed by sugar and vanilla essence. Stir in the flour with a wooden spoon, mixing the batter well. Spread the batter into the prepared pan and bake it for 25-30 Minutes. My brownie came out batter-clean, when I inserted the skewer at 25 minutes. Allow them to cool down. Cut the brownie bake into size that suits you. I got 25 bite sized brownie pieces .

 

What an amazing experience.. Snowdonian Mountains , lake and just us !! It all happened over the weekend.. and we did have bites of Hershey's brownies.. waiting for the steam rail..
The steam rails are a century old... .It was an 8Km steep ride.. Trekking one way would take minimum of 5 hours...
With lil ones around we took the steam rail return too... I m sure the pics would do the talking...








Hope u enjoyed glimpses of my trip... and lets enjoy it with the brownies...




INGREDIENTS:

Hershey's Syrup	1 1/2 Cup
Plain Flour	1 1/4th Cup
Unsalted Butter	1/2 Cup
Walnuts	Handful
Sugar	1 Cup
Large Egg	3 Nos

DIRECTIONS:

•  Heat oven to 350°F. Line a parchment paper on 13x9x2-inch baking pan and grease the sides. Cream the butter and sugar in large bowl. Add syrup, eggs and flour and beat well. Stir in chopped walnuts. Pour batter into prepared pan. 
• Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until brownies begin to pull away from sides of pan. Cool completely in pan on wire rack. Cut into bars. 

Secretly adapted the recipe from here . Shhhhh !!!!!

Cheers

Couple of things have been running in the background.I have been wanting to promulgate about two of my recent expeditions. My post on Anzac Biscuits has been published in 3 of our Local Magazines in the November edition- Sunbury Matters, Shepperton Matters and Village Matters. Its quite a swell feeling in mind and gives some usaid satisfaction as these magazines are circulated in around 12000 houses locally. Secondly, I have become a featured contributor to Sweet n Spicy App. This app is available for free in Android and Apple. Do download them in your mobile gadgets and browse over 100's of recipes.



Necessity is the mother of invention..And this recipe of Cake like, slightly crusty on the surface like Brownie is just out of a little goof up. And I am joyous as this blooper happened with no compensation on flavours. Divine and complete to relinquish your pallete with these cake like chocolate brownies.There are more brownie recipes in my blog - Hershey's Brownies, Ghiraldelli Brownies , My favourite Brownies



With respect to the pictures in this post, I had clicked them at about 4pm evening BST in the month of December. There was barely any daylight left. Hence got just  3-4 decent pictures that I could share. Picture data for the first image is ISO 800 , 50mm ,0.4sec at f / 2.5. You can imagine ...

BROWNIES Prep Time: 15 minutes Baking Time : 25 Min INGREDIENTS: 85g  Plain Flour 250g Caster Sugar 145g Unsalted Butter 2 Large Eggs 85g Cocoa Powder 1tsp Vanilla Extract ¼ tsp Baking Powder 100g Chocolate Chips DIRECTIONS: Preheat the fan assisted oven to 350 F, gas mark 4. Line a 9” Baking pan with a parchment paper cross wise extending it all the way up. This will help us to pull the paper out of the pan once the brownie cools down.   In a large mixing bowl, cream butter sugar and vanilla essence together. Whisk the egg, one at a time, Stir in the flour, baking powder and cocoa powder with a wooden spoon, mixing the batter well. Fold in chocolate chips. Spread the batter into the prepared pan and bake it for 20-25 Minutes. My brownie came out batter-clean, when I inserted the skewer at 25 minutes. Allow them to cool down. Cut the brownie bake into size that suits you. I got 25 bite sized brownie pieces.