Friday 11 March 2011

Cookies and Cream Brownies


These brownies were almost impossible for me to photograph. I baked them - they vanished.

They are inspired by Lorraine Pascale's recipe in her lovely book Baking Made Easy crossed with Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's ultimate double chocolate brownies from The River Cottage Year.

What you do is cream 125g soft butter with 200g caster sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in two eggs and 50g cocoa powder.

This is where my recipe diverts with Hugh's. He melts 100g good chocolate with two tablespoons of warm milk and beats that in. I opened my chocolate cupboard and found that I had fed the cooking chocolate to the children in the form of a fondue and all that was left was a bar of Green and Black's sublime 85% plain chocolate. Now that is officially The Best Chocolate in The World and no way was I going to put 100g of it into brownies. Instead I meanly broke off a few squares (having tested it first, just to check) and I melted it with the milk and a good dollop of Tesco Value chocolate spread.

How big is a good dollop? Ah ha. I used a dessert spoon and I scooped with enthusiasm. Having cooked the brownies I can confirm it adds a certain wonderful fudginess, so don't hold back. Pause to lick the chocolate spread spoon.

Next beat the chocolate or the choc-spread mix into the butter, sugar, eggs and cocoa, fold in 75g of self-raising flour and then add a 154g packet of Oreo cookies broken into at least quarters. Spread the mixture into your brownie tin (approximately 15cm x 25cm) lined with baking parchment.

Bake at Gas mark 3/170 degrees C until nearly cooked - a skewer inserted into the middle will come out slightly sticky. Actually I overcooked the ones in the picture a little, but the chocolate spread kept them delightfully gooey.

Pile on a plate and watch them disappear!

5 comments:

Arlene said...

I want to bake these right now! And I know I have all the ingredients at home. This is going to be a long afternoon in college...... :)

Thanks for the recipe!

Kath said...

Oh my goodness, they look absolutely delicious. I am going to try those this weekend. Thanks Mags!

Lins' lleisio said...

They look scrummy... I might even have a go :) Diet out the window, again.

lovethosecupcakes said...

Thanks for popping into Cupcake Towers. Totally agree that the 5 eggs in Lorraine Pascale's recipe are too much. Unfortunately I've given up "all things sweet" for Lent (seemed a good idea at the time!) so will have to wait a little while before trying your recipe.

Helen said...

Wow your photographs (not just these brownies) are amazing. I'm adding you to my google reader right now!