Food | A Naughty Little Chocolate Brownie

Paul Hollywood has a lot to answer for, not only has he helped revive the baking fever that is sweeping our nation, but he is also responsible for the recipe for these rather naughty chocolate brownies.

When I get a brownie craving, nothing but the most chocolatey, cakey, gooey brownie will do, and more often that not I'm left wanting by anything shop bought. 

Luckily this time, I had all the ingredients to knock up a batch of Mr. Hollywood's Chocolate Brownies with Dried Cranberries. And they definitely did not disappoint. Easy to make and outrageously chocolatey, they verge on extremely naughty indeed.

First of all you melt your butter and chocolate over some simmering water.

Keep an eye on it! It doesn't take long before it resembles Willy Wonka's Chocolate River and makes you want to dive right in.

In a separate bowl, with an electric hand-held whisk, beat together your eggs and sugar until the mixture is pale and fluffy.

Next add your chocolate mixture to your eggs and sugar.

I love the marbling effect as you combine the two.

Sift in your flour, baking powder and cocoa powder. Gently fold in.

Then add your cranberries and nuts (I used roughly chopped pecans instead of walnuts). Fold in,

Pour your mixture in a lined baking tin. The recipe asks for a 20cm square tin but I didn't have one so used this rectangular one which was about 17.5cm x 26cm, it worked out great.

Pop your tin in a pre-heated 180C oven and bake for 25-30 minutes. You know it's done when it look like this, nicely crusted on top but still soft and gooey in the middle.

I'm going off on a tangent here but I love any recipe which means I get to use an electric hand-held whisk. This one is my Mum's original from the 70's. It's kind of heavy and clunky but works like a dream and I'm totally attached to it!

Retro and I love it.

Reminiscing over kitchen equipment from the 70's over, I sliced up my brownies and piled 'em high.

Finish with a wee dusting of icing sugar, if you wish.

Chocolate Heaven.

NB. My batch only yielded 12 not 16.... which means I probably should have sliced them smaller. However,  I'm a greedy little piglet and chose not to. C'est la vie.