Okay, this is going to be short and sweet, and the main reason I am writing this is purely down to laziness. READ MORE
How to cut brownies perfectly
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Okay, this is going to be short and sweet, and the main reason I am writing this is purely down to laziness. READ MORE
How are the resolutions going? This year I decided to absolutely not make any new year’s resolutions. I’ve made many in my time and have found, after a good few years of research, that they are more often than not, pointless. READ MORE
Happy Boxing Day! I am on The Saturday Show on Channel 5 today at 9am making this recipe along with a few others. Mince pie brownies require no hard sell. They’re the festive cousin of the classic brownie with no need for a cronut style hybrid name. READ MORE
Nothing but nothing is prepared and it’s almost (gasp) December. This has never happened before. At least, if it has, I have blanked it out. I have a few stocking fillers. I have a list of possible gifts to buy. I have a box of Christmas cards and some silver bells to attach to the presents I haven’t bought yet. But that’s it. What’s wrong with me? READ MORE
Disclaimer: the picture is rubbish, I know. I am going to endeavour to use my grown up camera this year rather than my phone.
I’m not going to pretend like these are healthy, because sometimes you don’t want healthy. Sometimes the kale and the almond milk chat and the steaming rather than frying can give you healthy fatigue. If that’s the case then I prescribe something so trashy, so incredibly grubby that it sends you straight back on the wagon. This is that very thing. You’re welcome.
NB: They need to be eaten within 7 days of baking OR you can freeze them and then defrost at room temperature. Why not pop down to the corner shop, buy some Mars Bars, bake a batch, cut into little pieces and then open freeze, before storing in a freezer bag until you’re ready to decide which day is trashy day?
I made a lovely video with the Scoff folks to show off how to make these brownies. You can see the vid on my YouTube channel. You can watch it below too.
Lots of great recipes like this in my book, Recipes from a Normal Mum, out now… on Amazon, at Waterstones, WHSmith, The Book Depository and many smaller outlets.
Last December: My slow cooker beef bourguignon pie and Crumble topped mince pies and a very ugly but delicious cranberry & raspberry traybake
Two years ago: Mini Yorkshire pudding canapes and Christmas pudding fizz and Brandy butter icing and Rudolf morsels
Three years ago: Lime meringue pie with chocolate pastry and Christmas scones and Ginger cake with Christmas cottage and Hot chocolate on a stick
Four years ago: Moonuts and Cheese biscuits and Parsnip soup and Inauthentic chicken tagine
Mars bar brownies
Makes 9 large brownies or 16 smaller ones – cut them as small as you wish
Ingredients:
Grease and line a 20cm x 30cm tray and preheat the oven to 180C/gas mark 4. Melt the chocolate and butter in a large saucepan, stirring regularly to ensure the chocolate doesn’t burn. Remove from the heat when molten and add the sugars, eggs and flour. Stir well. Pour half into the tray and then slice the Mars Bars into 6 pieces and layer over the brownie mixture. Pour the rest of the batter over the top, ensuring the Mars Bar pieces are covered.
Bake for 25 – 30 minutes until the brownie has stopped wobbling and is starting to look a little cracked at the edges. Cool on a wire rack and refrigerate for an hour before cutting with a knife dipped in warm water. You can clean the knife after each cut to get perfect little squares.
NB: You can make this less floury and substitute the flour for ground almonds if you wish.
NB II: I have noticed that when using very expensive 70% cocoa solids dark chocolate these brownies get a kind of funny space crater like look on the top. To avoid this then use a chocolate with a lower cocoa solids content – something more like 40%. I am a big fan of Lidl’s cheap dark chocolate for baking. It seems to melt and bake very well indeed.
So youthful types get a bad press in general, no? I know I find myself crossing the road from large groups of teens, as if they’re a dangerous species, liable to snap and scratch. We’re conditioned to think of teens as feral, difficult and just plain bad. Well, I feel guilty about my presumptions after my experience with a carriage of silver drunks at the weekend.
A large group of men all over the age of 55 monopolised the carriage. (Actually, I am being kind. They were 60 if they were a day). They were very, very drunk. So far down the path to a a hangover that they couldn’t stand without help. They were shouting, swearing and I’m afraid to tell you, vomiting. One man, a delightful specimen, was telling the whole carriage what a dreadful woman his wife was. Guess who picked him up at the station?
The teenage girl next to me sat reading a classic novel, earphones in, occasionally rolling her eyes. I’m not sure whether to be impressed at their joie de vivre or appalled as she was. The only answer to the trauma of this very long journey of being terrorised by inebriated middle aged men was to make a batch of these brownies just as soon as I got home.
Lots more recipes like this in my book, Recipes from a Normal Mum, out now… on Amazon, at Waterstones, Morrisons, Waitrose, The Book Depository and many smaller outlets.
One year ago: Hazelnut cupcakes with Nutella buttercream and Red root reblochon bake and Simple banana cake
Two years ago: Cherry tomato frittata and Lemon brioche or Death by chocolate cake
Three years ago: Tiramisu profiteroles and Drunken cherry brandy mincemeat or Macarons
Four years ago: Easy cheesy pasta and Almond coated chicken and Mince pies for mince pie haters
Makes 12 brownies or one larger traybake
Gluten free black forest brownies
Ingredients:
Preheat the oven to 180C/gas mark 4. Line a 25 x 20cm tin with non-stick paper. Drain the tinned cherries and discard the syrup then heat in a small pan with 2 tbsp of the kirsch for 3 minutes, stirring continuously. Remove from the heat and set aside.
Place 325g chocolate and the butter into a medium saucepan and heat on a very low heat, stirring all the time until dissolved and molten then remove from the heat. (If you are worried about the chocolate going grainy then use the bain marie method). Put the rest of the chocolate in the fridge.
Add the vanilla extract, both sugars, almonds, the eggs and the tinned cherries to the molten chocolate and butter and stir well. Pour into the tin and bake for 25 – 30 minutes until the top of the brownie has formed a crust but there’s still a little squidge left in the middle. (The sides will be a little better cooked.) It may have puffed up a bit but will sink after removing from the oven. Cool on a wire rack still in the tin until completely cool.
Once cooled spread the top with a very thin layer of conserve, ensuring you spread all the way to the edges. Then whip the double cream with the icing sugar to medium peaks. Spread over the top of the jam covered brownie. Make some chocolate shavings with the refrigerated dark chocolate by pushing a sharp non serrated knife across the top. Decorate with fresh stalk-on cherries and chocolate shavings.
Slice with a hot knife (dipped in boiling water) for perfect little squares.
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There are signs all over the place. My trousers all all too tight. There are three loads of washing on the floor next to the washing machine. Dust everywhere. Boxes in the hallway that need breaking down and recycling. The library books are overdue. I ate a whole bag of Choco Crunchy for breakfast, in the Aldi carpark. There’s no face wash left. My eyebrows need threading. And last night I protested and whined as Mr Bell insisted we change the sheets at 11pm. I’d broken a jiffy bag at 9.30am and accidentally spread that nasty grey filling over the bed. Worryingly I could see nothing wrong in sleeping amongst grey fluff. It’s kind of fitting. It’s how I feel. A bit grey and fuzzy and horizontal.
Why has the Bell household gone to ruin? Well, I have a deadline. It’s self imposed. No-one is making me complete anything. But I know the deadline is there, it stares at me. Mocks me. I feel like a teenager again, trying to avoid revising, though this time it’s rather more eating too much and perusing the Daily Mail gossip section online as displacement activities, than reading Adrian Mole novels and searching for blackheads. God alone knows how teenagers with access to the internet get any revision done at all. They are all clearly geniuses.
Here’s a lazy recipe as if to prove my lazy ass state.
I made some of my brownies and added in a good handful of banana chips. See I told you it was a lazy recipe. Now, where’s that 5th bag of Choco Crunchys?
Holly Bell 