Your Classic Dark Chocolate Brownies

This is so exciting, baking and all. Baked these brownies for cell last week - guinea pigs, haha. Oh, I can't wait to cook! Why, just today I cooked mushroom chicken as comfort food. But somehow it just doesn't taste or look like the one I have back home, though it tastes good. What's next? C'mon, throw me something to cook up!

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Preparation time: 30 minutes

Cooking time: 27 minutes

Serves: 10 large pieces

Ingredients:

• 125g butter at room temperature, chopped
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 150g dark chocolate, chopped
• 3 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• 1/3 cup (50g) plain flour
• 1/3 cup (35g) cocoa powder
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 cup walnuts (optional)

Method:

1. Pre-heat oven to 180°c. Grease and line the base of a baking tin with baking paper.
2. Bowl 1: Sift and mix the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and optional walnuts in a bowl.
3. Bowl 2: Place chopped butter and dark chocolate pieces in a large heatproof bowl. Okay, so there are a few ways you can melt and mix the two. There's the cool melt it over boiling water way, but I used the cheating microwave way :P Place the bowl in the microwave for 20 seconds. Take it out and stir the butter and chocolate together with a wooden spoon. Repeat this for about 3 times. You don't need to wait for the chocolate to melt entirely - it just needs to be soft enough to be pressed and mixed together with the butter.
4. Bowl 3: Whip the eggs at high speed until frothy. Immediately add in the sugar and vanilla essence and mix well.
5. Add Bowl 3 into Bowl 2 and mix at a medium-low speed.
6. Slowly add in Bowl 1 and mix well until combined.
7. Pour mixture into the baking tin and bake for 25 - 30 minutes. Check with a skewer/toothpick to see if it's cooked. If you want it gooey, there should still be some bits left on the skewer/toothpick. The baking time really depends on how you like your brownies, and the oven temperature. I reckon about 27 minutes would give you crunchy on the outside and gooey on the inside kind of brownies. YUMZ.
8. Remember to leave it to cool before cutting it up! Serve up with ice cream or dust with icing sugar.

Baking is seriously sinful. How do those bakers bake and give it all away D: Maybe they don't have YY to say "Keep some, okay!" :P And then have a chocolate free diet. :(