broken easter egg brownies

… it’s Good Friday and whilst I had promised myself the day to do absolutely nothing it’s actually a glorious sunny day here at the cottage and so with the kitchen doors wide open i’m having a fabulous baking day… The Viking has gone out, i’m home alone, the apron is on and I am on fire.  So far i’ve baked a mushroom and kale quiche, a rhubarb and raspberry tart and these rather special brownies.  I have slow-cooker plans for a hunk of bacon and i’ve even pulled some chicken thighs out of the freezer that i’m thinking will go down a treat on Monday…  I know it may sound crazy to stay in and bake on a lovely sunny day, especially when the forecast for the rest of the weekend is supposed to be so gloomy but to be honest the kitchen is my happy place and with the weather so happy i’m channeling the whole thing into the baking… Plus it means that I can spend this ‘extra’ day doing the fun stuff and get it all out the way for proper ‘feet-up’ action for the next three days which means that by the time we have to drag our tired and sorry souls back to the big city we’ll be utterly recharged…. and anyway, so far it’s going very well and quite frankly I couldn’t be happier…

broken easter egg brownies
i’ve looked back through the blog and through websites and cookbooks and I cannot find the place where I first came across this brownie recipe but wherever it was, thank you… for me, it is simply the best ever brownie recipe.  It has both a light and dense quality, has the perfect salty butter crust and if you pop the brownies in the fridge once they’ve cooled, it becomes gloriously fudgy and chewy which is exactly what you want in a brownie.  It’s also very adaptable and will take lots off additional goodies and quite a bit of messing around…

… I realise it may be a little strange to suggest a broken easter egg brownie prior to the actual egg day itself but as many of my food blogger fiends will attest (and probably most of my non-food blogger friends if they’re honest too) we’ve had chocolate eggs in the house for the past couple of weeks.  Now, as the social media will show, there are a LOT of creme egg recipes going around – i’ve made a few myself… but this is not one of those.  This is a regular brownie with one of those corner-shop easter eggs broken into it.  To be precise i’ve used a 125g smarties easter egg which is a milk chocolate egg filled with candy covered chocolate smarties.  It’s the crappy milk chocolate egg that makes these dark chocolate brownies taste just so bloody phenomenal..

ingredients
185g butter
185g good quality dark chocolate – at least 70% cocoa solids
3 large eggs
275g golden caster sugar
85g plain flour
a pinch of salt
40g cocoa powder
any left-over easter eggs at your disposal

grease and line a 20cm square brownie pan, pre-heat the oven to 160C

in a pan gently melt the butter and chocolate – do this over a really low heat and stir regularly – take it off the heat before it’s fully melted and set aside to cool, stirring again as it melts

in a large bowl beat the eggs and sugar with an electric mix for about 6 minutes until it doubles in volume and becomes pale, light and airy then pour in the melted and cooled chocolate and gently fold in until it’s fully combined

sieve in the flour, salt and cocoa and again, gently fold in, and disperse your broken easter egg evenly then pour the mixture into your brownie pan.

bake on 160C for 25 mins then remove from the oven and let it cool in the tin – cut into squares or cut out heart shapes and serve

i’m linking these brownies to a number of my favourite and fabulous bloggers link-ups which include Alphabakes hosted by Caroline Makes and The More Than Occasional Baker, Tea Time Treats hosted by Lavender and Lovage, We Should Cocoa hosted by Tin and Thyme and Lancashire Food, Treat Petite hosted by CakeyBoi and The Baking Explorer and finally the No Food Waste Challenge hosted by Elizabeth’s Kitchen Diary

eat and of course, enjoy!