Recipe: Chunky Chocolate Brownies

Wow. I made brownies for the first time and they taste amazing. 👌 Need to write this down now before I forget what I did! Tweaked this recipe slightly as I usually find the full amount of dark chocolate in recipes too rich. 🙆

Ingredients
160g salted butter
150g dark chocolate
35g milk chocolate
275g caster sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla essence
85g plain flour
40g cocoa powder
75g white chocolate (chopped)
50g milk chocolate (chopped)

Method
1) Line a baking tray with greaseproof paper and preheat oven to fan 180C.
2) Melt together the butter, dark chocolate and milk chocolate in a glass bowl over a saucepan of simmering water on the hob.
3) Whisk the eggs and sugar together until light and frothy/doubled in volume. Add the vanilla essence and whisk to combine.
4) Pour the cooled melted chocolate mixture into the egg mixture and gently fold together with a spatula.
5) Sift in the flour and cocoa a little at a time, folding in gently with the spatula.
6) Add the chopped chocolate and fold in gently. Try not to overmix.
7) Tip the mixture into the baking tray and carefully spread evenly to the corners with the spatula.
8) Bake for 25min. When it's ready it shouldn't wobble when the tray is shaken.
9) Leave to cool completely in the baking tray.
10) Dust with icing sugar and cut into squares.

I think I might have to experiment with this as the base - change the amount of chopped chocolate, replace with walnuts/marshmallows/Smarties... Add Nutella... Top with ganache... The texture and richness of these were just perfect though. 😍

Instructions (part 2); Recipe: Nutella-Surprise Fairy Cakes

To complete our work on instructions, I helped the girls bake some more cakes (any excuse for cake!), taking photos along the way, then printed these photos off as a memory aid to help them write their own set of instructions.

I cut the photos out and mixed them up, so the girls' first challenge was to order the pictures. Then they stuck them down on the A4 template, filled in the ingredients list and wrote their instructions on the next page.

You can download our worksheet template here.

Here's the recipe we used:

Ingredients:
2 eggs (120g)
120g softened salted butter
120g caster sugar
120g self-raising flour
1tsp vanilla essence
1tbsp whole milk

6tsps Nutella
70g melted milk chocolate
2 Kinder Buenos

Method:
1) Preheat the oven to 180C fan, line a baking tray with cake cases and weigh out all the ingredients.
2) Beat together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
3) Whisk the eggs, vanilla essence and milk in a separate bowl then beat into the cake mixture.
4) Sieve in the flour and fold it in gently.
5) Divide the mixture evenly between the 12 cake cases and bake for 14min until lightly golden brown.
6) Leave to cool on a cooling rack.
7) Cut out the centres from each cake, fill with 1/2tsp Nutella and replace the centre as a lid.
8) Spread the melted milk chocolate on the top of each cake and decorate with 1 square of Kinder Bueno.

Recipe: Chocolate-chip Vanilla Sponge Cake

INGREDIENTS
For the sponge:
3 eggs (60g x 3 = 180g)
180g caster sugar
180g salted butter at room temperature
180g self-raising flour
1 1/2 tbsps milk
1 tsp vanilla essence
100g milk chocolate chips

For the filling & decorations:
100g salted butter at room temperature
200g icing sugar
1 tbsp milk
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
300ml double cream
3 tsps icing sugar
1 bag of Smarties
1 Crunchie

METHOD
1) Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees (fan) and line two cake tins with greaseproof paper.
2) First, make the sponge. Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, e.g. with an electric hand whisk.
3) Whisk the eggs, milk and vanilla essence together in a separate bowl with a fork.
4) Beat the egg mixture into the butter/sugar mix a third at a time until completely combined, e.g. with an electric hand whisk.
5) Sift the self-raising flour into the mixture, a third at a time, folding in gently (with a spatula or wooden spoon) until completely combined.
6) Pour the half of the mixture (around 360g) into 1 of the cake tins.
7) Fold the chocolate chips into the remaining mixture then pour into another cake tin.
8) Bake for around 20min, checking with a toothpick to check when it's done (i.e. when poked through the centre, the toothpick comes out clean).
9) Run a butter knife around the edges of the tins. After leaving to cool for 10min, tip out onto a baking rack to cool completely.
10) With a large serrated knife, carefully slice each sponge in half.
11) Make the buttercream by beating together 100g butter with 200g icing sugar, the milk and vanilla essence until light and fluffy, e.g. with an electric hand whisk.
12) Add 3 tsps of icing sugar to the double cream and whisk until it forms soft peaks.
13) Starting with the chocolate-chip sponge and alternating with the plain vanilla sponge, layer the cake with just under 1/4 buttercream and 1/3 whipped cream between each layer. Spread the remaining buttercream on top.
14) Crumble a Crunchie onto the centre and decorate the edges with Smarties.

The twins helped choose the flavours and design of this cake, and we had it for their 5th birthday. 😋😋

Recipe: Chocolate & Vanilla Layered Cake

Ingredients:
3 eggs (60g x 3 = 180g)
180g caster sugar
180g salted butter at room temperature
1 1/2 tbsps milk
1 tsp vanilla essence
90g self-raising flour
70g self-raising flour + 20g cocoa powder

1) Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees (fan) and line two cake tins with greaseproof paper.
2) Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. I used an electric hand whisk.
3) Whisk the eggs, milk and vanilla essence together in a separate bowl with a fork.
4) Beat the egg mixture into the butter/sugar mix a third at a time until completely combined. Again, I used an electric hand whisk.
5) Split half the mixture into a clean mixing bowl (around 270g).
6) Sift 90g of self-raising flour into the remaining mixture in the first bowl, a little at a time, folding in gently (with a spatula or wooden spoon) until completely combined.
7) Sift 70g self-raising flour and 20g cocoa powder into the mixture in the second bowl, a little at a time, folding in gently until completely combined.
8) Pour the mixture from each bowl into cake tins, 1 tin for each mixture.
9) Bake for around 20min, checking with a toothpick to check when it's done (i.e. when poked through the centre, the toothpick comes out clean).
10) Leave to cool for 10min before running a butter knife around the edges of the tins and tipping out onto a baking rack. Leave to cool for at least 20min then slice in half and layer with e.g. buttercream, whipped cream, etc.

For this one I used a thin layer of vanilla buttercream on every layer (100g butter, 200g icing sugar, 1tsp vanilla essence, 1 tsp milk), whipped cream in the centre (~150ml double cream) and chocolate cream on the top and bottom layers (~200ml double cream, ~30g melted milk chocolate). Finally, I sprinkled a crumbled Flake on top.

If you wanted to also cover the edges of the cake, simply increase the amount of buttercream accordingly at a ratio of double icing sugar to butter.