Best Brownies!

I didn’t bake these! I came home from work one day and my girl had them spread out on a cooling rack. One taste and I knew for sure I had to share the recipe! I went into food-styling mode and pulled out my latest op-shop $2.99 purchase..being the little white and blue platter you see here. These chocolatey bites weren’t the easiest things to evenly portion and make look ‘tidy’..(especially because some accidentally ended up in my mouth), but a dusting of fine, powdered European chocolate (usually reserved for at-home milky coffee’s) made them look like part of the ‘chocolate truffle’ family (I thought)!

Until I tasted this recipe, I thought the best brownie’s came from a packet mix at Aldi supermarket. They are soft, dense and fudgy, not overly sweet and you’d never tell there wasn’t any actual chocolate in them. That’s right.. I could hardly believe it myself, but cocoa reigns supreme in this recipe! We had walnuts at home, but the original recipe says you can use whatever nuts you have on hand. We also use vanilla extract instead of essence. Thank you to Celia Brissenden, an ‘Age Epicure’ reader/contributor who shared this with the newspaper some years ago.
Best Brownies!

-1 cup unsalted butter
-1 cup sifted cocoa
-1 cup raw sugar
-1 cup castor sugar
-4 large eggs
-1/2 cup plain flour
-1/2 cup almond meal
-1 cup chopped walnuts
-1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
-1/4 teaspoon salt
-Drinking chocolate to dust over finished brownies
———————————————-
-Preheat oven to 180c
-Lightly grease and flour a square baking tin, preferred size 20 x 20cm
-Melt butter and stir in cocoa & sugars
-Mix in eggs one at a time
-Add flour & almond meal and stir well
-Add walnuts, vanilla extract & salt
-Put mixture into prepared baking tin & spread evenly
-Bake for 20 minutes and test with a skewer, there should be a few moist crumbs, it may need a few more minutes.. up to 10 extra minutes
-When brownies are done, leave to cool and shrink slightly in the tin before cutting in squares and putting them on a cooling rack
-Optional: Serve with ‘light’ whipped cream from a can!