sweet chocolatey goodness

This weekend we celebrated a friend's birthday with a bbq on a gorgeous sunny day (in the middle of a drizzly gloom sandwich!).

When I asked whether I could bring something of the bakey variety I got a request for my easy cheesy choc-peppermint brownie (after admitting that she had tried to convince her significant other to commission me to bake for her..)

By complete coincidence just days beforehand Bells had had something of a disagreement with Nigella's version of the cream-cheese brownie, so I promised I would post the results of my Saturday afternoon brownie workshop, avec recipe, for her to compare.


Taadaa:
(does this count as an FO??)

You will need:

4 large eggs

360g castor sugar

320g salted butter

130g dark chocolate ok, usually this is where you get the talk about using the best qulity chocolate blah blah. I recommend dark - the milk can be too sweet, I think - but other than that anything will do. I usually either use nestle dark choc melts or the supermarket brand chocolate

2 tsp peppermint essence or not, if you're not down with peppermint - you could use orange essence, or a shot of strong coffee - hey, they're your brownies you can do what you want! =)

120g plain flour

80g cocoa

160g Philadelphia cream cheese

Ready? Ok.

- preheat oven to 160C

- beat eggs and sugar on low speed for 2 minutes

- melt butter and chocolate together, then add peppermint essence

- add chocolate mixture to the egg/sugar and mix on low speed for 2 minutes

- add flour and cocoa, mix until the batter looks matte and creamy mmmmmmmm

- now for the secret ingredient - the cream cheese! Drop teaspoons of the cream cheese into the batter and either gently fold through or beat for 30 seconds.
This weekend I tried one batch each way and have to admit I think that the gentle-(ish) fold through is far superior - moister and gooeyer, but still sliceable.

- if you like the traditional nuttiness of a brownie now's the time to fold them through - personally I prefer choc chips =D

I guess this usually takes between 30 and 45 minutes to bake.

You'll be able to tell when its ready, it will 'set', the top will crack and edges puff, and it might even rise on top (on cooling any rise will drop - I think this helps make it so dense and delish!).

From a regular size slice pan I usually cut about 20 - 24 pieces, and it is great microwaved with icecream!

Happy chocolating!
If anyone does try these out, please do let me know - I'd love to hear how they go =)