Nina's Passionfruit Brownies

A short posting on these birthday brownies I made for my pal Nina, who - like me - has a penchant for passionfruit. These brownies are dark, fudgey and guaranteed to lift the spirits on cold February days. Though thankfully we've entered March so I won't complain about how awful February was (I mean seriously, it was cold!)

The recipe was adapted from Nigel Slater's "very good brownies" in his Nigel Slater's Diary book, I simply halved the recipe and threw in a few passionfruit. You could of course add walnuts or other fruit such as raspberries, pears...

Makes 12 brownies

Ingredients:

• 125g dark chocolate (70% if possible)
• 125g butter
• 150g light brown sugar
• 40g cocoa powder
• 40g self-raising flour
• 2 medium eggs + 1 extra yolk
• pinch salt
• seeds and pulp of two passionfruit

Method:

The beauty of brownies is in the ease of preparation. There's no method per se, just chuck everything together and bake for 1/2 hour til they're done.

Preheat oven to 180C. Place some greaseproof paper in a 18cm square baking tin. 

Over a saucepan of simmering water, place a heatproof bowl and in this bowl put the butter and chocolate. Allow to melt, then take off the heat and add the sugar, stirring til incorporated, and add the eggs. Sift the flour, salt and cocoa powder into this mixture and stir again,  finally adding the passionfruit pulp. 

Bake on middle shelf of the oven for 1/2 hour - the brownies are done when you insert a skewer and there's some dense crumbs left on the skewer but no gloopy, wet mixture.

Allow to cool 1 hour before cutting into pieces, or eat the brownies whilst warm :-)

* if you want to make brownies and freeze them for future use, double the quantity here and freeze what you don't eat immediately - great for when you need an emergency dessert at a dinner party or just when you need something uplifting on a rainy afternoon

Something to please chocoholics and passionfruit-obsessives alike!

Following Wednesday's feature on passionfruit and its many virtues, here's an addendum: throw the pulp & seeds from a passionfruit in with your brownie mix. Or anything with chocolate for that matter, provided the chocolate is dark as the tartness of passionfruit exposes the sweetness of milk chocolate, whereas it marries happily with the bitterness of dark chocolate. Have a super-duper weekend!

The recipe from today:

• 200g butter
• 5 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
• 150g 72% chocolate - I used Green & Black's cooking chocolate
• 320g caster sugar
• 125g self-raising flour
• 30g ground almonds
• 4 eggs
• 1 passionfruit
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/4 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 180ºC, line a 20x30cm cake tin with baking parchment

In a medium saucepan, bring 3cm of water to a simmer, and place a large heatproof mixing bowl (pyrex is good) on top of the saucepan. Turn off the heat, then add butter, chocolate and cocoa powder to the mixing bowl. Allow this to melt, stirring occasionally, while you weigh the other ingredients. In a small bowl, break up the eggs with a fork and set aside. When the chocolate and butter has melted and looks smooth, take the large mixing bowl off the saucepan and allow to cool for a minute or two before adding the ground almonds, sugar, vanilla, eggs and finally the flour. Fold everything through and pour into the prepared cake tin. 

Bake on the middle shelf of the oven for 30-35 minutes. Keep an eye on the brownies - insert a skewer to see if the mix is cooked. If some wet batter still comes out, put the brownies back in the oven for another 5-8 minutes. Don't overbake them otherwise the brownies will be dry and cake-like :-) 

Cocoa-rich Brownies with Raspberries

A chocoholic's dream: dark cocoa-rich brownies and tart, seasonal raspberries. Growing up in Norway, we always baked cakes, muffins and brownies with unsweetened cocoa powder - an economical, under-rated ingredient which adds a dark, bitter chocolate flavour to baked goodies. I find using cooking chocolate can make these brownies too rich, but some prefer brownies that way. At any rate, these brownies are perfect for summer when raspberries are at their ripest, of course during cooler months one could always use frozen raspberries...

Serves lots of greedy chocoholics

Preheat oven to 180ºC, line a long, 20cmx30cm rectangular cake tin with greaseproof paper/baking parchment

• 400g sugar
• 250g butter
• 150g self-raising flour
• 7 tbsp cocoa powder - green & black's is great
• 4 eggs
• 2-3 tbsp strong coffee or 1 shot espresso
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 150-200g raspberries

Melt the butter in a small saucepan, sift in the cocoa powder and stir until fully incorporated. Add the coffee/espresso and vanilla and set aside

In a large bowl, beat the eggs with the sugar until pale and fluffy (ca.5-8 mins). Fold in the cooled cocoa-butter into the eggs, stir through briefly with a large metal spoon being careful not to knock all the air out. Sift the flour and salt in to this mix and stir through until it looks even

Finally, add the raspberries and stir 2-3 times to distribute them. Spoon the mix into the long rectangular baking pan and bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes. The surface of the brownie mix should feel slightly soft to the touch, and have a dry, paper-thin crust. If you're uncertain, check with a skewer to see if any wet mixture remains, if not the brownies are ready. Resist the temptation to bake the brownies for too long otherwise they dry out and become rather hard

Allow to cool before slicing into squares. Eat as they are or serve them with a dollop of fromage frais, creme fraiche or vanilla ice cream. These also freeze well for future use...