Nigella's Everyday Brownies

My family is never sick of chocolate... and brownies!

Having said that, I wouldn't recommend eating brownies everyday for a healthy living but wouldn't mind having a "micro" slice of brownies everyday to satisfy our chocolate cravings.

Unlike the low fat Everyday Yogurt Cake that I have previously baked, I reckon that this Nigella Lawson's Everyday Brownies is not intended for everyday consumption. It is a quick recipe that anyone can easily bake when any of us are expected to bake something instantly...
 
Although these brownies are made with this quick and easy recipe, they are not less extravagant at all if good-quality ingredients are used. My son and I made ours with Callebaut cocoa powder and chocolate chunks with 70% cocoa. We made ours slightly different from the original Nigella's method; we adapted a more child-friendly way by stirring warm melted butter and everything else off the stove instead of using a heated saucepan. After tasting our first slices of brownies, my son and I were totally sold. These brownies are truly heavenly as what Nigella described, they did "ooze with dark elegance and deep, deep chocolatiness"... Yum!
 
Never enough of brownies and... Nigella? Yes, of course.

Nigella Lawson is an internationally well-known British food writer. She is neither a trained chef nor cook but has expressed well her relaxed approach of cooking and food. I'm totally convinced by her sensual manner of presenting her cooking and food and love her being the "queen of food porn".

In 1998, Nigella wrote her book, How to Eat, which sold 300,000 copies and became a best-seller and went on to write her second book in 2000, How to be a Domestic Goddess, winning her the British Book Award for Author of the Year. And, of course, I'm a proud owner of these two books and more and love to cook and bake like this queen of food porn.

Proudly presenting our everyday brownies...

Mixing the batter

Baking the brownies

We were excited to see oozing chocolate when we sliced our freshly baked brownies...

Thanks Nigella! This recipe is brilliant!

Never enough of this!

Here's the simplified format of the recipe from Nigella Quick Collection App or the book, Kitchen by Nigella Lawson (with my modification in blue)

10 tbsp unsalted butter
1 2/3 cups light brown muscovado sugar
2/3 cup cocoa powder, sifted
(I used the Dutch processed one)
1 cup plain flour
1 tsp baking soda
pinch of salt
4 eggs
(reduced to 2 eggs for 2/3 of recipe)
1 tsp vanilla extract
approx. 6 oz milk chocolate
(I used dark chocolate with 70% cocoa)
icing sugar, to dust, optional
(I didn't do this)
11 x 9 x 2 inches baking tin (lined with baking paper)

Preheat the oven to 190°C/375°F (160°C fan forced). Melt the butter over a gentle heat in a saucepan. Add sugar into melted butter and stir mixture until well incorporated.  
(My child friendly method: When the butter is melted, I removed my saucepan from the heat at this stage and poured the warm butter into a mixing bowl to stir in the sugar.)

Sift cocoa powder, flour, baking soda and pinch of salt together, and add the mixture into the pan. When mixed, this will be a very dry mixture and remove from the heat.  
(My child friendly method: I removed my saucepan from heat at the previous step.)

In a bowl or jug, whisk the eggs with the vanilla extract and then mix into the brownie mixture in the pan.

Chop the chocolate into small chunks, then stir it in. Pour into the prepared baking tin. Spread the mixture with a spatula and bake for 20–25 min. It will look set, dark and dry on top but feel a little wibbly underneath. The cake tester will come out gungy and according to Nigella, this is desirable.

Transfer the tin to a rack to cool before cutting and dusting with icing sugar. (I didn't dust my brownies with icing sugar). Serve them either warm gorgeously with oozing chocolate or cold more brownies-like with a little chewy top texture.

Note: Using 2/3 of the recipe, we have baked our brownies in 20 cm square baking tin at 160°C fan forced for 20 min.

Happy Baking
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