The Teaspoon: Strawberry Fudgy Chocolate Brownies

By Diana

I've always been jealous of other people's brownies! It seems that everyone has a little secret fabulous brownie recipe that they just don’t give away, or even worst, they write it down with an innocent slight twist, leaving out that essential ingredient without which the recipe does not work at all!

So, in order to end with my resentfulness, I did a little bit of homework and researched a few "famous" British recipes for brownies. Although Jamie Oliver's recipe turned out to be a favourite among the brownie eaters, Nigel Slater offered a fudgy brownie recipe that I just needed to try out, but I do admit that I modified it slightly! The strawberries were my idea though -just to please myself with the word seasonal- and I added a touch of Venezuelan flavour: a tablespoon of rum to spice it up! They lasted less than 24 hours in the kitchen and we are only 2 people in the house... I hope they won't last long in your kitchen either!

Ingredients

100 g fresh strawberries
125g dark chocolate, chopped in small pieces (reserve 50 g of the chocolate)

150g caster sugar
125g unsalted butter, softened
2 small eggs plus 1 extra egg yolk, beaten
30g flour
40g cocoa powder (I used ovomaltine)
1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon rum

Preparation method

Preheat the oven to 180C/350 F.

Line a 30x20x7cm (approximately) heatproof tin with baking parchment.

Cut the strawberries in halves and set aside.

Melt 80 g of the chocolate in a small saucepan suspended on top of a larger one, with enough water so it won’t touch the bottom of the smallest saucepan with the chocolate. Allow the water to simmer. When the chocolate is melted, remove it from the heat and let it cool down a few minutes.

Meanwhile use an electric mixer to beat at high speed the sugar and unsalted butter in a bowl for about 5 minutes or until the yellowish colour of the butter vanishes and the mix acquires a fluffy consistency.

Add the beaten eggs to the butter and sugar mixture. Beat at low speed. Now incorporate the melted chocolate, the remaining 50g of chocolate and the teaspoon of rum and beat a little bit more until well combined.

Sift the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt on the mixture. Fold the ingredients using a spatula or a spoon, combine well. Add the remaining 50g of chocolate and fold again.

Add the batter to the lined baking tray. Smooth the surface with the spoon or spatula. Now arrange the halved strawberries on top as you prefer. I imagined one strawberry half for each piece of brownie I was going to cut later.