Chocolate brownies

One of our most frequent requests is for “the best way” to make brownies – the ideal ratio of chocolate and flour, how to make them really gooey and tricks to make them stand out from the crowd. Well, here is our favourite recipe.

You will need
Brownies:
150g dark chocolate
150g butter
200g sugar
75g plain flour
2 large handfuls of salted popcorn
4 tablespoons of Greek style yoghurt
3 eggs
Sauce:
100 dark chocolate
30 butter
1 tablespoon of peanut butter
Pinch of salt
Caramel:
50 sugar
80 water (plus 2 tablespoons to get the sugar melted)
Pinch of salt

Makes a tray

Brownies:

Preheat the oven to 180 C
Melt the chocolate and the butter together in a bowl over a pan of simmering water, leave to cool for a couple of minutes
Crack the eggs in a bowl and whisk with the sugar
Pour the chocolate mix into the eggs and fold in the flour
Add in the pop corn and mix in again
We added an extra flourish with a few dollops of Greek-style yoghurt
Use a spoon to spread it around a bit, and it creates attractive swirls on top, whilst adding a little touch of fresh flavour
Bake in the preheated oven for 25 to 30 minutes, and check by inserting a skewer or knife into the batter
Moist crumb is fine, but you don’t want any wet batter to come out.
Once cooled, these brownies are ready to be sliced and served.

The sauce:

Start the same way, with a bain marie, chocolate and butter, but this time also add peanut butter and salt
Leave to melt
Once it’s done, whisk together thoroughly
Next step: get sugar and the 2 tablespoons of water in a pan over a medium heat
Wait for the sugar to melt, then increase the heat and boil it for a couple of minutes until you get rich, dark golden colour
Once this colour takes over the pan, carefully add the rest of the water
Reduce the temperature, but keep it on a low heat so the sugar will re-melt after the shock of cold water
Add a little salt and keep stirring, until you’re satisfied that any lumps are gone
Leave to cool – we recommend pouring it into a jug for this – then add incrementally to the chocolate sauce
Keep stirring as you go
We made ours really thick
If you’re going to be naughty, at least do it properly