Holly’s best ever brownies

Ingredients

• 250g really good quality dark chocolate
• 250g unsalted butter
• 175g golden caster sugar
• 3 large eggs, plus 1 extra egg yolk, lightly beaten
• 80g plain flour
• ½ tsp baking powder
• Pinch of salt
• 60g good quality cocoa powder
• 100g walnuts or pistachios (optional)

Preparation

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180C, and line a 23cm x 23cm baking tin with baking parchment.
2. Set a bowl over, but not touching, a pan of simmering water, and add 200g of the chocolate, broken into pieces. Allow to melt, stirring occasionally, and then remove from the heat immediately.
3. Meanwhile, beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, and break the rest of the chocolate into chips.
4. With the mixer still running, gradually add the eggs, beating well between each addition to ensure it’s thoroughly incorporated before pouring in any more. Leave mixing on a high speed for five minutes until the batter has a silky sheen, and has increased in volume.
5. Remove the bowl from the mixer, and gently fold in the melted chocolate and chocolate chips with a metal spoon, followed by the sifted flour, baking powder, salt, cocoa powder and walnuts.
6. Spoon the mixture into the tin, and bake for 30 minutes. Test with a skewer; it should come out sticky, but not coated with raw mixture. If it does, put it back into the oven for another 3 minutes, then test again.
7. When the brownies are ready, remove the tin from the oven and leave to cool for at least half an hour before cutting into squares. Store in an air-tight container; these will keep happily for a week (if they hang around that long).

You could add anything you like to these – marshmallows, broken biscuits, cherries, hazelnuts – it’s up to you. You could even try adding cardamom if you want something a bit different.