patrícia furtado

My friend F. is extremely hard to please, specially when it comes to desserts. He only enjoys chocolate cake, and not all will do. So, after baking a disastrously dry chocolate cake for the Halloween party - one that would kill someone if thrown to their heads - I decided to bake him something slightly different for Christmas.

After some research I found this simple Chocolate Brownies recipe on Cooking for Engineers and gave it a go. It was fantastic on the first day, but they didn’t seem to keep very well. Is it always like this with brownies? I will have to try some other recipes and see what comes out. Still, this one is very very good if you plan on eating them straight away.

You can check the Cooking for Engineers website for step by step photos and very detailed instructions, but here’s the thick of it:

170 g dark chocolate
170 g butter
125 g all-purpose flour
300 g granulated sugar
3 large eggs
(the original recipe calls for a teaspoon of vanilla extract as well, but i really wanted to keep it simple, so i omitted it)

Preheat the oven to 160º C. In a double boiler, melt the chocolate and the butter. Stir in the sugar, then the beaten eggs and then the flour, trying not to leave any lumps. Butter and dust with flour a rectangular baking tray. Bake for about 35 minutes and cut into squares.

I love these warm with whipped cream or vanilla ice-cream, topped up with chocolate sauce, but they are also great on their own.