It is Saturday morning and I am waking up with an image of food in my mind – brownies. Sweet and delicious, golden-brown, firm-crusted, gooey and mellow inside… I have a perfect recipe for the occasion, but watching out for my weight I hesitate cooking a really rich and decadent dessert, instead I substitute the original ingredients to create an easy and lighter version.
No chocolate, just really good quality cocoa powder, the rest is simply using in general less of the remaining basic ingredients.
The result is equally tempting, chocolate lava like brownies, that start with a bite, yet melt straightaway in your mouth in delicious sweetness.
Perfect to be served with raspberries and whipped cream or vanilla ice-cream.
Ingredients
- 150g (10 tablespoons) Unsalted Butter
- 300g (1 1/4 cups) Caster Sugar
- 110g (3/4 cups plus 2 tbsp) Cocoa Powder
- 1/4 tsp Salt
- 1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract
- 2 Eggs, straight from the fridge
- 120g (1/2 cup) Plain (All Purpose) Flour
Method
1. Pre-heat your oven to 160 degrees. Place the butter, sugar, salt and cocoa powder in a medium to large heatproof bowl. Gradually stir every few minutes until the butter has melted and everything is combined. The mixture should be smooth, but slightly gritty. Set aside, off the water to cool.
2. Line a 9 inch square tin with foil or good quality baking parchment while the mixture cools a little. Beat in the vanilla extract with a balloon whisk followed by the eggs one at a time until the mixture is smooth.
3. Beat in the flour until the mixture is smooth and slightly glossy. Pour into the tin and bake on the bottom half of the oven for 20 minutes. Allow to cool and remove the foil and slice the brownies into 16 squares once completely cool.
4. Servie with vanilla ice-cream, raspberries or whipped cream.
