Nutella Brownies

Yesterday was one of my housemates birthdays and while he's not really into cake he loooves brownies. Also, since his party took the form of a Bring Your Own Food, Booze and Cigars (BYOFBC), they suited perfectly. I also happen to know that Davey has a real love of Nutella so with that I set about tweaking a brownie recipe I got from my mum to make it work. I've made brownies once before and unfortunately they did not end happily. the recipe came from a childrens cookery course I did and they were dire. Needless to say that knocked my brownie confidence a little but I figured now was about time to give this devilishly moreish treat another go.

I scoured the town where I live for the best quality Hazelnut spread I could find and eventually settled on the Choco Nusse spread sold in LIDL. The spread itself is darker in colour and has a richer taste. The cocoa is stronger and the hazelnuts are more flavourful in comparison to the traditional Nutella. The original recipe called for 60-75% cocoa chocolate but I could only get my hands on 50%. As it turns out this was a bit of a blessing because had there been any more cocoa the hazelnut flavour would have been totally overpowered and the brownies too rich.

Roasted Hazelnuts
Preheat oven to 150C
Spread the required amount of hazelnuts onto a baking tray
Roast for 15 mins, turning once.
Allow to cool, then skin them by rubbing them vigorously between your hands

Chocolate Hazelnut Brownies
Makes around 20 medium brownies

• 180g butter
• 270g chooclate (50% cocoa)
• 370g Nutella or chocolate hazelnut spread of your choice + 170g extra
• 180g light brown sugar
• 130g roasted hazelnuts
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 3 large eggs
• 120g flour
• 1.5 tbsps cocoa powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking powder

Preheat oven to 175C

Line a 10x12"/9x13" pan with greaseproof paper

Melt butter and chocolate over a bain marie

Stir in Nutella, remove bowl from the bain marie and cool mix until it reaches room temperature

Mix in brown sugar and vanilla

Add eggs 1 at a time beating well after each addition (the mix should be glossy and smooth)

In a separate bowl combine the flour, baking powder, salt and cocoa powder

Combine with the wet ingredients

Stir in roasted hazelnuts and pour out into the prepared pan, spreading the mix evenly

Heat remaining 170g of Nutella over a bain marie and drizzle over the mix in the tin. 

Swirl throughout the top of the mix using a knife or skewer

bake for 25-35 mins, until a toothpick comes out mostly clean and the texture is still slightly fudgy when touched.

I hope you enjoyed them as much as Davey and the other party goers did! I must say brownies aren't as scary as my previous experience would have lead me to believe; I will definitely be making them more in the future :)

Many thanks to Making Life Delicious for the first picture in this post, my camera's been a little out of sorts lately :/

x

World Nutella Day and a suitable recipe

After a long thesis related absense I'm back and from the abyss of late night statistics sessions and results analysing I bring a recipe featuring the world famous hazelnut-chocolate spread we all know and love (I hope)! Ok so a few of my friends are having birthdays this week so it's gonna be all go on the baking front for me (not that I'm complaining in the slightest :D :D :D

First off I decided to do muffins for Tara :) The only question is what type? After a good long think and a bit of a food porn session I found out that it was recently World Nutella Day. I decided I just HAD to make something and found several recipes for self frosting nutella cupcakes. Sometimes I think frosting detracts from the cupcake itself and I know many people who hate the stuff and end up scraping it off so these were perfect :D! I'm using a slightly modified version of my own fairy cake (yellow cake) recipe to which I added some of the chocolatey yumminess :)

I hope you enjoy these, Tara sure did :)

Self-Frosting Nutella Muffins

(Makes 12)

• 140g butter (at room temp)
• 110g white caster sugar/130g granulated white sugar
• 1/2 tsp vanilla essence (I omitted this for this recipe but feel free to add it)
• 2 eggs
• 50ml milk
• 200g plain flour
• 2 tsps baking powder
• 12 tsps Nutella

Preheat oven to 160 C/325 F

Line/grease a 12 hole muffin tin

Cream butter and sugar until creamy and light

Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition

Stir in vanilla essence

Sift in flour and baking powder and mix until combined

Add milk until the mixture is the right consistency (It should stay on a spoon easily but slowly fall off when the spoon is turned over)

Put 1 tbsp of the mix into each hole in the tray, distributing any remaining mix into the 12 holes

Put 1 tsp of Nutella on top of the mixture and swirl in using a toothpick/fork (I found the fork better at first but it's messy no matter what you use)

Bake for 22mins, until well risen and a toothpick comes out clean (maybe with some Nutella on it, depending on where you stick the toothpick)

Cool on a wire rack (or not) and enjoy :)