Brownies

The story that I heard about brownies was that they started life as cake that someone forgot to add raising agent to. True or not I found it quite hard to get the ratio right between fudgy and cakey until eventually I got it right.

300g Flour
2 Tbsp Cocoa powder
1 tsp salt
200g butter
200g dark chocolate
1 tsp instant coffee
250g brown sugar
4 large eggs

1. Turn on the oven and preheat to 270c. Grease and line a baking tray (I use a square christmas cake tin).

2. Melt the chocolate, butter and coffee together in a bowl over a pot of gently simmering water. Add the sugar and remove from the heat, allowing to cool for 10 mins.

3. Sift together the flour, the cocoa powder and the salt.

4. Mix the eggs, one at a time, in to the chocolate and butter mixture.

5. Fold the flour mixture into the chocolate mixture. Don't over mix this or it will become too cakey.

6. Bake 20 mins until only the centre remains fudgy. Remove from the oven but leave it in the baking tin until it cools.

Variations
Nuts - Chopped walnuts, hazelnuts or pecans are good additions
Marshmallows - Either mini marshmallows in the brownie mix or after the brownies have cooked add a layer of marshmallows and pop them in the oven on the top shelf on a high heat, don't worry you won't over cook the brownies because they'll be insulated but keep a eye on them so that the top doesn't burn.
Chocolate chips - Dark, milk, white, whatever takes your fancy