Madhouse recipe : Eric Lanlard's Devilish Chocolate Brownies

This weekend, we had a big baking session and when I asked Pierre what he'd like to make, he said brownies. I decided to try out a recipe for Devilish Chocolate Brownies from Eric Lanlard's Totally Chocolate recipe book and I have to say, we were impressed. The most important thing is not to overcook brownies, so that they stay nice and gooey.

 Eric Lanlard's Devilish Chocolate Brownies

Ingredients

200g dark chocolate

150g butter

2 tsp vanilla paste or extract

150g sugar

2 eggs

75g plain flour

2 tbsp cocoa powder

1 teaspoon salt

100g dark chocolate chips (optional)

Break the chocolate into a heatproof bowl with the butter and vanilla extract. Melt over a bowl of boiling water or in the microwave if you prefer (which is what I did).

Stir until smooth and glossy then stir in the sugar and, when it's cooled slightly (to avoid scrambling them !), beat in the eggs.

Add the flour (I threw in 1tsp of baking powder too but it wasn't in the original recipe), cocoa powder and salt.

Fold it all together with a spatula and mix in the choc chips if using.

Pour into a greased tin.

Bake in a preheated oven at 180° for 25 minutes. Turn off the heat but leave in the oven for a further 5 minutes, then leave to cool completely in the tin. Cut into squares or triangles of gorgeous chocolately gooeyness. The recipe says they will keep in an airtight tin for up to 4 days - you're having a laugh !