Thursday 26 November 2009

Snow-Flecked Brownies

The subject of this month's Sweet and Simple Bakes challenge is the much-loved chocolate brownie and the recipe we have used is Nigella Lawson's Snow-Flecked Brownies, as seen in Feast.

The chocolate brownie must be one of my top five all-time favourite cakes. It's a classic and surely epitomises everything the perfect cake should be - simple but indulgent, a rich combination of cakeiness and fudginess that is as at home on a dinner party table as it is served up for afternoon tea.

I've come across a number of brownie recipes in my time, some of which are merely slightly embellished chocolate cake recipes. Don't be fooled - a brownie recipe should contain substantially more eggs and chocolate (dark, 70% of course) than your average cake otherwise you are not going to get that dark squidgy centre.

So does this recipe beat my previous favourite? Nigel Slater's brownie recipe, from his Kitchen Diaries, has been my first choice for some time now and I have to say it stills just wins the day by a small margin. The recipes aren't dissimilar however Nigel cuts back on the proportion of eggs and flour and adds a bit of cocoa so you end up with a more chocolatey brownie. Don't get me wrong though, these brownies more than satisfied my need for something indulgent and I do like the aesthetically pleasing addition of icing sugar, especially at this time of year, when anything even faintly festive rings my bell.


The recipe can be found here. You should note that this makes a LOT of brownies. I halved the quantity and ended up with 14 perfectly sized squares. Oh, and if you want your pieces of white chocolate to maintain their shape and not melt into slushy streaks then you might want to leave the mix to cool a while before mixing it in.


Thanks go to Maria and Rosie for hosting the Sweet and Simple Bakes website and choosing another great recipe for us.

9 comments:

  1. I love that they're in little cases!

    I think I'll halve the recipe next time, I've been foisting brownies on people all week in an effort to get them off my hands!

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  2. I adore your lil bite sized chunks!

    Katie xox

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  3. Beautiful brownies. I love the liners!

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  4. Your brownies look lovely as well.. :)

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  5. Love that first picture. So cute and so enticing. Easy recipe - great tasting brownie.

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  6. Very elegant brownies in the liners, they were delicious weren't they. Lucie x

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  7. Isn't this just the best brownie recipe ever? Love your bite size versions too ;0)

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  8. Agree, these weren't the very best brownies I've tasted, but I think that's my own fault for slightly overcooking them and they were still very good. Lovely idea putting them into cases.

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  9. Hi Helen, Really glad you got my little festive parcel. I hope everything survived and tasted good. No worries about posting after Christmas, I know just how crazy things can be, and throw a bit of illness into the mix and everything just gets out of whack!

    Can't wait to see what arrives!

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