Macadamia nut & white chocolate brownies - recipe

 

This recipe is from Ottolenghi's first cookbook "The Cookbook".  So far I'm really loving the cookbook as the recipes are really spot on.  Apparently the key with baking brownies is not to overbake them.  This means you have to take it out earlier than you think it will be done to avoid it turning into into a cake. 


Ingredients:

• 300g dark chocolate, broken into pieces
• 200g unsalted butter, plus some extra for greasing the pan
• 280g plain flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 free-range eggs
• 230g caster sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• 200g macadamia nuts, toasted for 5 mins
• 200g white chocolate chips (or chocolate broken into pieces)

Steps:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 170 degrees celcius. 
2. Brush a 20 cm tin square pan or similar sized round pan with melted butter and line with baking paper.
3. Melt the dark chocolate with the butter in a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water until fully melted.  The bowl should not touch the water, and take the chocolate butter mixture off the heat once it has melted.  If it get too hot, then the brownies can get a bit greasy when it is baked. 
4. Whisk the eggs, sugar and vanilla essence in a large bowl until just combined.
5. Add the melted chocolate butter mixture and mix lightly.
6. Fold in the sifted flour.
7. Add the macadamia nuts and chocolate chips.
8. Bake in the oven for 25 minutes or until a skewer comes out with gooey crumbs (not completely dry).  The top of the brownies should be completely dry.

These were my first batch of brownies and when they came out, they were a bit on the greasy side.  But I let them rest overnight and they firmed up very nicely to a rather dense fudgy texture on the next day.  They were so rich I had to cut them into small squares as I was worried people would OD on chocolate. 

For my next batch I'm thinking of adding raspberries, and maybe almonds or hazelnuts.

What's your favourite flavour of brownies?  Let me know!