Walnut Brownies
The addition of walnuts to these delicious chocolatey brownies adds wonderful layers of flavour and crunchy texture which blend perfectly with the soft, gooey, fudgy centre and slightly crispy top.
Ingredients
Brownie Batter:
- 200g unsalted butter, in cubes
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200g dark chocolate, 74% cocoa solids, broken into pieces
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150g soft brown sugar
- 50g caster sugar
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3 large eggs
- ¼ teaspoon fine salt
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100g plain/all-purpose flour, sieved
- 25g cocoa, sieved
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½ teaspoon instant coffee powder, sieved
- 100g chopped walnuts (or use pecan nuts)
Topping:
- 16 unbroken walnut halves (or use pecan halves)
Instructions
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Collect together your equipment (see Recipe Notes below) and ingredients.
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Preheat oven to fan oven 170°C /190°C/375°F/Gas 5
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Chop the butter into squares and place in a microwave safe bowl with the chopped chocolate. Melt in a microwave or a bain marie or and mix until smooth. (See Recipe Notes for details.)
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Meanwhile put the sugars, eggs and salt in a mixing bowl and whisk with an electric whisk until thick and creamy. This will take around 3 minutes.
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Pour the chocolate and butter into the eggs and sugar, whilst whisking, and mix thoroughly with the electric whisk until smooth and glossy.
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Put a sieve over the bowl and add the flour, cocoa and coffee.
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Sift directly over the cake batter.
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Fold until nearly mixed in and add the chopped walnuts.
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Fold in but be careful not to over-mix at this stage.
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Transfer to your baking tin and level the surface, making sure the cake batter goes all the way into the corners.
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Top with the walnut halves placing them in the correct position to be in the centre of the 16 brownies when you cut them out.
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Cook in the oven for 20 – 25 minutes, depending on how squidgy you like the centre to be. It will carry on cooking when you take it out of the oven so bear this in mind. (I cook mine for 23 minutes in London and 24 minutes in Switzerland.)
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Leave to cool in the tin for 30 minutes and then, using the overhanging parchment, transfer the brownies to a cooling rack – do not remove the parchment, they will be too fragile
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Leave to cool completely before cutting into squares
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N.B. To speed up the cooling process and/or create particularly neat edges when cutting, transfer to a fridge to cool and slice when very cool. However, they are best served at room temperature
Recipe Notes
Equipment
- Large microwave safe jug or heatproof bowl
- Electric whisk and mixing bowl
- Kitchen scales and measuring spoons
- Sieve
- Chopping board and knife
- 20cm/8inch square baking tin lined with baking parchment
Be very careful melting the chocolate. Chocolate can be very difficult to work with. You can overheat it very easily and the mixture will go grainy. When this happens, there is no way to resolve it I’m afraid!
Microwave: I give the chocolate and butter a minute in the microwave, take it out and stir it well, then let it sit for a few minutes to see if it continues melting sufficiently to melt all the chocolate. If not, I then continue with the microwave but in 10 – 15 second bursts.
Bain Marie: if you do not have a microwave, put the chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of gently simmering water. Do not let the base of the bowl touch the water. Heat until the chocolate and butter are very nearly melted then take it off the heat and take the bowl off the saucepan. Be very careful not to burn yourself as the bowl will be hot and steam will escape from the saucepan. Allow the mixture to sit for a few minutes for the residual heat to melt the remainder of the mixture. Again, be careful not to over-heat.