O.C.D.

A relaxing Sunday with no plans and no chores. Now doesn't that sound simply wonderful? I had a good start, walking along the sea-shore to the shops to get the Sunday papers (the sun was shining and the sky was mostly blue - a glorious morning), but ever the restless spirit, I soon gave in to the need to be doing something. Whenever my need to take it easy is fighting the good fight against my desire to be busy (insufficient chill time leads me sadly but surely down the road to relapse and illness), I try desperately to tune in to the clamour of voices in my head (which would be all of my family screeching at me to for god's sake just relax!). In this instance, the devil on my shoulder won the battle and off I went to make brownies (they were baking in the oven as I started to write this and boy did they smell good). In my own defence, brownies are both speedy and easy to make, which means I haven't really broken my do-nothing vow... I swear! Besides, since I find baking so therapeutic and relaxing, I'm really doing myself a favour (I can be quite persuasive with myself when I want to be).

Brownies in the making...

So let's talk brownie. They have to be dense, fudgy and moist, rather than light, airy and cake-like. This means none of the usual faffing about with creaming methods, whisking eggs or raising agents, and it's what makes them perfect as a starter recipe for the novice baker. Yes, you have to melt chocolate, which some people find terrifying (though some recipes contain cocoa instead - easier and less expensive but not as luxurious as the melted chocolate version). The method is fool-proof: simply melt chocolate and butter together (there is much less chance of your chocolate seizing or burning if you melt it with butter, so fear not), add sugar, eggs and vanilla extract and mix until incorporated, then stir in the flour. Job done. To this basic chocolate brownie recipe (see below) you can then go wild - add nuts, dried fruit, chocolate chips or salted caramel. Whatever your little heart desires, there's probably already a recipe out there (even if you don't have my library of baking books, Google is your friend here), but if you're confident enough, feel free to strike out on your own. The joy of baking for your own pleasure is that if it goes wrong, it doesn't really matter. You'll know what to do or what not to do the next time. 
  

The icing on the cake...

I often feel that the basic chocolate brownie - no matter how deliciously chocolatey or perfectly baked it is - needs improvement. I'm not sure what it is about it - the sameness of texture and flavour perhaps? Whatever it is, I feel it's crying out for a make-over. It's the ultimate fixer-upper of a cake; a dense chocolate slab that can take a multitude of different flavours and textures. That's why the idea of chocolate icing to go on top of an already rich, decadent brownie really appealed to me. Not a new idea by any means and I currently have two go-to recipes for something similar, but the icing described by No.2 Sister recently was a fresh take on it. 

The icing recipe comes from the kitchen of young Donal Skehan and is, apparently, the very one that No.2 Sister enjoyed on the fabulous brownie. I managed to track it down on his blog (she says, like it was a marathon search - it actually popped up on first google). It's essentially a chocolate cream cheese frosting and folks, it is a winner (recipe below). The result is an unusually light, very luxurious frosting. It has the consistency of softly whipped double cream, but is even silkier in texture. It's immensely chocolatey but not overly rich and the slight tang of the cream cheese contrasts with the dense chocolate brownie beautifully (and the combination of icing and brownie tastes for all the world like the best chocolate cheesecake ever). It hasn't quite nudged the salted caramel and peanut brownie off first place, but I don't have the heart to relegate it to second place either. We might just have a draw in the perfect brownie stakes. 

Reflecting on the compulsion I've felt over the last two weeks to make these brownies has given me pause. I'm quite busy, very tired and don't have a marvellous appetite just now and yet I absolutely had to make these brownies. Is it normal to be so obsessed with cake and cake-making? I've even been reading a book on the history of cakes (fascinating by the way). There's no way round it - I believe I'm suffering from Obsessive Cake Disorder and, Lord save me, I'm so far gone that I don't even want to be cured... 

Fabulous Chocolate Brownies

Ingredients
140 g butter
200 g dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids), chopped or broken into small pieces
225 g caster sugar (or muscovado sugar for a more fudgy flavour)
1.5 tsp vanilla extract
0.5 tsp instant espresso powder
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1 large egg yolk, at room temperature
85 g plain flour

Method
Heat oven to 180 C and line a 20cm square tin with baking parchment. Melt the chocolate and butter in a large bowl over a pan of simmering water (make sure the bowl isn't touching the water), stirring occasionally. Once melted, remove the bowl from the pan and leave to cool a little (otherwise the hot mixture would scramble your eggs - not so yum).

Stir in the sugar and vanilla until well mixed. At this stage you'll have a grainy mixture, so don't fret if you think it's going wrong. Add the eggs and yolk and stir into the mixture before folding in the flour. Turn the mixture into the prepared tin and bake on the middle shelf of the oven for about 30-35 mins - you want it to be slightly under-baked, if anything (nothing worse than a dry brownie). If you insert a skewer or cocktail stick into the centre, it should come out with some moist crumbs sticking to it (but not wet batter).

Allow to cool in the tin, then cut into squares.

Even more fabulous brownies...
You can vary this basic mix however you please. If you like a nutty brownie, then simply add 150 g of chopped walnuts, pecans, hazelnuts, almonds (not pistachios though - they just turn soft and waxy) or the same amount of chocolate chips, dried cherries or desiccated / flaked coconut.

If you want to try my much vaunted salted caramel and peanut version, then you'll need a tin of Carnation caramel. Happily, it's now readily available and a much easier and faster option than either making your own caramel or boiling the tin of sweetened condensed milk, as folks used to do (though it sounds like such a  bad idea to me - exploding tin of milk anyone?). Simply add a heaped teaspoon of Maldon salt or similar and stir it through the caramel - you really don't want fine table salt here, as the idea is to have little nuggets of salt through the caramel that pop up and grab your attention every so often, rather than an overly salty mouthful.

Once you have the brownie mixture in the tin, drop blobs of caramel randomly over the mixture, then use the tip of a knife to gently marble it through. Scatter about 50 g of salted peanuts over the top (more if you really love your peanuts) and bake as above. 

Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting
This is a very simple matter of beating 100g butter (softened) with 450g cream cheese, until pale and creamy (an electric mixer will save you no little exertion here), then folding in 320g icing sugar and 50g cocoa (both sifted). As ever, I found the addition of a little bit of coffee (1/4 tsp of instant espresso powder) helped the chocolate flavour to jump out. I found that this made almost double what I needed, but since some people like a bit of brownie with their icing as opposed to the other way round (hello No.1 Niece), I'll leave the decision on quantity up to you.