Walnut and Fudge Brownies

Giving in to the excesses of the season, I used my 'best' brownie recipe, which gives dense, sweet and chewy brownies. The recipe comes from a 2000 edition of Good Food magazine, but I've never seen it on their website.

For a 7"(18cm) square tin, you use a large bowl over a pan of simmering water to melt together 100g each of 70%+ chocolate and unsalted butter, then take the bowl off the heat and allow to cool slightly, so that the chocolate mixture isn't so hot that it scrambles the eggs. Stir in a pinch of salt, 2 teaspoons vanilla extract and 300g of caster sugar. Next beat in two large eggs, one at a time, and then 125g plain flour and 2 tablespoons of cocoa, sifted together. Beat the mixture for about 1 minute, until smooth, the transfer to the lined baking tin. Bake at 180C for about 40 minutes, or until a probe comes out with a few damp crumbs still sticking to it.

I doubled the recipe and stirred 100g of chopped walnuts and 100g of chopped fudge into the batter. This was so that CT could have half the batch, to start his Christmas eating with some home cooking. I used Lindt cooking chocolate which gave a really dark colour to the brownies. I'd forgotten how good these brownies are! And how rich - I could only eat half a portion at a time!

Oatmeal Brownie Bars

I'm very fond of oat bars, both filled bars and flapjacks, so imagine my delight on finding a recipe which put brownie batter between the oat layers! I can't remember now what I was looking for when I found this recipe at Land O' Lakes, but it was immediately bookmarked to be made as soon as possible.

The chance came when I needed something to share with CT, who was having a meal with us. We haven't seen him as much as expected since he moved into his new home, which is a Good Thing, as it means he's managing better than I expected, but I miss baking for him, and I'm sure he misses home cooked treats too. I thought these Oatmeal Brownie Bars would be ideal as they would be fairly sturdy when wrapped for him to take home.

I followed the recipe exactly, except that I baked it in a slightly smaller tin (a 12" x 8" tray) and I added about 100g of small fudge chunks to the topping. This added a nice butterscotch flavour, but wasn't really necessary as the bars were rich and sweet enough - I only added the fudge bits to clear the store cupboard of at least one half-used package. It was hard to judge when the second baking was enough. I left them for the whole 18 minutes, as I was using a smaller pan, but 15 minutes would have been better, as the edges of the brownie had cooked a little too much and had lost some of the moist fudginess of the centre. You can see what I mean in the photograph above

The bars where the brownie was still gooey were fantastic - both for flavour and the fudgy texture - although the pieces where the brownie had overcooked were still delicious. The combination of the oaty layers and the brownie was good too - a base layer of solid oaty biscuit made the whole bar more substantial than a brownie on it's own, while not detracting from the depth of the chocolate flavour. This is definitely going to be a recipe I use again!

Chocolate Chip, Fudge and Ginger Cookies

I'm falling into the stereotypical role of a mother - baking cookies to take to my son, when we deliver another load of his books this afternoon. I'm beginning to wonder if his room here will ever be emptied, and if you hear of a 3-storey block of flats collapsing somewhere in Cambridgeshire, you'll know it was the weight of his books wot did it!

This is another version of these lovely oil-based cookies from Cookie Madness. I used sunflower oil rather than olive oil, and instead of dark chocolate chunks and nuts, I used 30g each of dark chocolate chips, mini fudge pieces and finely chopped glacé ginger. I'm trusting it will be a fabulous flavour combination, because I'm not going to be tasting them. They certainly smelled good while baking!

Orange, Ginger and Fudge Chip Cake

A simple everyday cake; again, made with yogurt and oil. The added flavours were very subtle and blended together well, without any of them overpowering the others. The fudge chips, from Waitrose, were very small and more or less disappeared into the cake - I think the brown-lined holes in the photograph of the cake are where a fudge chip has melted!

The method is very simple - dry ingredients mixed in one bowl, wet ingredients beaten together until amalgamated, then stirred into the dry mix. Bake in an 8"(20cm) springform tin for 50-60 minutes, until a test probe comes out clean.

Ingredients - Dry: 200g plain flour, 2 teaspoons baking powder, 200g caster sugar, 1 teaspoon ground ginger, grated rind of a small orange, 50g finely chopped preserved ginger, 50g finely chopped candied orange peel, 50g fudge chips.
Wet: 250g natural yogurt (standard full fat works better than low-fat, fat-free or higher-fat Greek style), 115g sunflower oil, 3 eggs, 1 teaspoon orange extract.