Homemade Brownies - Baking Mad recipe

Last weekend, we were going over to my parents for Sunday lunch and they asked for us to bring a dessert. So for Lee's first ever baking experience we made a blueberry crumble cake which turned out surprisingly well.

To go with the cake, on a whim I decided to make some brownies to take. I didn't have my hummingbird bakery cook book so I had to look a recipe up online and came across the Baking Mad recipe for the 'ultimate brownie.' http://www.bakingmad.com/the-ultimate-chocolate-brownie-recipe/
The recipe looked pretty amazing so I thought I would give them a go. However, I didn't have unrefined dark muscovado sugar so substituted it for light brown caster sugar. I tend to use this when I bake brownies because the fine grain gives a smooth texture and because it is brown it doesn't taste quite as synthetic. I also added in white chocolate chips because I love the little extra sweet burst you get when you add them in.

So the ingredients were as follows:

200g Butter (unsalted)
350g Dark chocolate
3 Eggs
250g Light brown caster sugar
50g self-raising flour
30g of white chocolate chips

So the steps were as follows:

Step 1: Pre heat the oven to 190 and line a 20cm baking tin with grease proof paper. - From my experience, make sure that you use grease proof paper the tin or butter it so that the brownies come out easily. The reason I say this is, with a brownie, they are gooey even after you have cooled them or chilled them in the fridge so having the grease proof paper makes it so much easier to cut up and remove the first few brownies. 

Step 2: melt together the butter and chocolate in a Pyrex bowl over simmering water

Step 3: Whisk together the eggs until pale and fluffy then add in the sugar until it is thick and then fold in the chocolate - I haven't had to whisk the eggs separately before but actually, I really like this technique because it gives the brownie mixture a lighter consistency so it doesn't feel as dense

Step 4: sieve in the flour until the mixture is smooth

Step 5: Pour into the baking tin and cook for 30-35 minutes, the top should begin to look like paper and there should still be some movement in the centre of the tin

Step 6: If the brownie begins to brown at the edges pop some foil over the edges to protect them

Step 7: Leave to cool and then you can cut it up into squares

These brownies were great. They weren't really gooey in the centre however they had the paper top and a very smooth consistency to them. The addition of chocolate chips definitely added a bit of extra sweetness. I would like to try them again when I have muscovado sugar in the house.

Gourmet Burger Bistro - Cork

As the second part of Lee's birthday weekend away to Ireland, we had two nights in Cork. As per usual we took a coach there in the early hours. I slept most of the way whilst Lee played on his phone and did man things.

Cork was gorgeous when we arrived! Stepping off the coach which we had been stuck on for three hours, into the bright December day, started the day right. After checking into our hotel which looked onto the River Lee (the fact it had the same name as Lee, definitely had a bearing on my choice). We decided we needed something to eat. We hadn't eaten since the previous evening so using my Tripadvisor app, I found a place called Gourmet Burger Bistro, a 5 minute walk from our hotel. It ticked the boxes on feeling lazy, being hungry and having both vegetarian and meat burgers.

The restaurant sits on the start of the hill of Bridge Street. We walked in and it has a cafe/ american diner feel to it being slightly darker, painted wood, booths and wooden tables. There were only a couple of other tables when we went in but it felt very relaxed. We were sat in the cosy corner which I always like.

We skipped the starters as we were hungry. I went for the Italian burger which came with parma ham, pesto and mozarella. While Lee went for the breaded halloumi burger which came with sweet peppers, roast beetroot and red pepper chutney. Mine was nice but the burger meat was a little thin and whilst the parma ham, mozarella and pesto goes fantastically with chicken, with beef it isn't such a great combo. Having said that I loved that it came with an Italian flag in it and the bread was soft and it still tasted good. Lee's on the other hand was amazing!! It was crispy, juicy, sweet and sour all at one. It was so delicious. The chips were a great size too.

A nice little extra touch and one that I always appreciate is that there was mayonnaise on the table and it was home made.

To finish the lunch off we had the hazelnut and chocolate brownie to share. It came with toffee sauce and real whipped cream. It was soft and chocolatey but the toffee sauce definitely made it!!

The meal cost around 37 euros which is about £31 which for a hearty lunch time meal was good value for money.

Cork was gorgeous! Such a relaxed and pretty city and the trip to Blarney castle and dinner at Market Lane and Gourmet Burger Bistro made it tick all the right boxes.

Christmas lunch with a brownie thrown in

Just before Christmas, my dad and I finally met up for a lunch during the week....it only took us 6 months to organise. 

We went to this lovely little place called Banh Mi Bay on Theobalds Road. I had the pork rolls to start and then a chicken salad for my main. They were delicious and filling but light and not greasy. The atmosphere is there is pretty hectic at lunch because you can get takeaways but it doesn't feel crowded. 

Afterward lunch, my dad wanted to pick up a little extra present for my mum and sister so we popped into Konditor and Cook. Naturally I was drawn to the brownie display. It was very tempting to go for the 'buy three and get one free' but I resisted. Instead I chose just one single Curly Whirly brownie which had a cheesecake marbled on the top. 

It took a lot of will power but I managed to save the brownie till the evening when I shared it with Lee. Cut into half (the slightly larger half going to me), we ate the brownie. My god it was good! So moist and then the smooth creamy cheesecake made it melt in your mouth. It was gooey but not so much that it stuck your mouth together or that it fell apart when you touched it. 

When I finished that brownie, I was kicking myself, why did I go for the buy three and get one free? Oh well I will just have to make another trip there. 

The brownie was so good I went onto their website to torture myself a little bit more by looking at photos of all the brownies. Whilst I did make myself more hungry for a brownie, I did also discover that Konditor and Cook have a cooking class where you can go and learn how to make their delicious brownies. For an evenings class which is an hour and a half and costs £60 you learn to make their brownies. I know what I want for my birthday!