Chocolate Brownie Cake

My lovely friend Estelle is having a baby in a couple of weeks, and last weekend was her Baby Shower. It was a lovely, chilled out afternoon with a cool bunch of girls, eating lovely food and talking about baby stuff, amongst other things. Estelle was suitably pampered and I treated her to this special Baby Shower Chocolate Brownie Cake.

Recipe for chocolate brownie cake
1 pack of dark chocolate drops
1 pack of white chocolate drops
100g dark chocolate (minimum 70% cocoa)
220g butter
4 medium-large eggs
100g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
400g brown sugar
50g demerera sugar
½ tsp salt
1 tub of full fat cream cheese
200g icing sugar 

Melt the chocolate and butter in a large glass bowl over a pan of hot water, or microwave it on high for 40 seconds at a time, stirring until it is all melted. Any longer than 40 seconds and the chocolate will burn and be unusable. Stir it together until it is all blended, then simply add all the other ingredients and stir again until completely mixed. Finally, add the chocolate drops, give a quick stir and then transfer to two 9 inch cake tins – silicon or greased and lined metal – and cook at 180 degrees for 25-30 minutes. Be careful to leave an inch at the top of each tin, as the mixture will rise whilst cooking, and the first time I tried this recipe it overflowed onto the bottom of the oven. Mr Rice was not impressed when he had to clean it up.

When the cakes are cooked they will be springy to the touch, but remember that the skewer test does not apply here, as you want the end result to be sticky and moist, not clean and dry like a normal cake. They will be crispy on top and gooey inside. Let the cakes cool fully in the tin. With normal chocolate brownies there is no problem removing and cutting them into pieces when warm – even if a little breaks off. However, it is crucial that this version remains fully intact, and the cooler it is, the less fragile it will be.

While the cooling is taking place, make the filling. Simply place the tub of cream cheese and the icing sugar into a mini blender and blend until the mixture is smooth. Then leave in the fridge to firm up.

Carefully remove the cakes from their tins and lining paper, if used, and choose the cake with the best-looking top, and place the other on a serving plate.

Then smear the filling all over the bottom cake, and sandwich the other on top. Carefully melt the white chocolate in a bain marie or in 30-second bursts in the microwave, and use a teaspoon to drizzle the chocolate over the cake in whatever style you like. Finally scatter the silver balls all over the cake – they will always land on the chocolate.

Leave to set for 30 minutes and serve. The filling makes the lower cake even more squidgy and gooey than normal…Enjoy!

© Katheryn Rice 2008

Chocolate brownies & white chocolate blondies

Chocolate brownies and white chocolate blondies

This mountain of chocolate brownies and white chocolate blondies (brownies made with white chocolate) is one of a trio of the best desserts I have made so far. They were as crunchy, chewy, sweet and chocolatey as they could be and they went down very well indeed.  

I have already posted my healthy chocolate brownies recipe, but this is the full fat, full sugar version, which my eating companions insist I post, so here it is:

Recipe for chocolate brownies
1 pack of dark chocolate drops
50g dark chocolate (minimum 70% cocoa)
110g butter
2 eggs
50g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
200g brown sugar
25g demerera sugar
¼ tsp salt

Melt the chocolate and butter in a large glass bowl over a pan of hot water (a bain marie). Make sure the bottom of the bowl stays out of the water, so the chocolate doesn’t burn. Stir it together until it is all blended, then simply add all the other ingredients and stir again until completely mixed. Finally, add the chocolate drops, give a quick stir and then transfer to a square silicon tin and cook at 180 degrees for 25-30 minutes.

To make white chocolate blondies, just replace the 50g of dark chocolate and packet of chocolate drops with white chocolate.

When it’s cooked it will be springy to the touch, but remember that the skewer test does not apply here, as you want the end result to be sticky and moist, not clean and dry like a cake. They will be crispy on top and gooey inside. Let the brownies cool a bit in the tin, then cut into pieces – as small or big as you like.

There are so many varieties of chocolate brownie recipe around that much as I love this recipe, I have decided to try some of the others I have come across. Keep an eye on my new ‘chocolate brownies’ category for my latest brownie experiment.

© Katheryn Rice 2007

Chocolate brownie baked alaska

My mum made baked Alaska for us a few times when we were kids, and it used to fascinate me. Cooked ice cream! Plus it combines two of my favourite things – ice cream and soft, chewy meringue. Add light, fluffy sponge and some strawberry jam and it’s the perfect pudding magic trick.

Simon Rimmer made this chocolate version on telly a couple of weeks ago, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it until I made it for myself. It quite fiddly to put together, but actually pretty easy. The scary part was while it was cooking, hoping that I had sealed all the meringue around the ice cream, so it didn’t melt. And the chocolate sauce is the best I have tasted. What an absolutely perfect recipe which I will definitely be using again – Cheers Simon Rimmer!

Recipe for Chocolate Brownie Baked Alaska
Chocolate sauce
100g caster sugar
100g butter
1 vanilla pod, seeds scraped out
125g chocolate (70 per cent cocoa solids)
75ml water
1 tbsp cocoa

Baked Alaska
1/2 a batch of chocolate brownies
1 tub of Green & Blacks vanilla ice cream
3 free-range egg whites
75g sugar

Preheat the oven to 220C/425F/Gas 7.
For the chocolate sauce, put the sugar, butter and vanilla seeds into a pan over a medium heat and stir until melted and combined. Then add the chocolate, water and cocoa and heat gently for 6-8 minutes, until it turns into a glossy, thick chocolate sauce. Get a spoon and take a big scoop of the sauce, then make sure it tastes as rich and chocolatey as it looks.

For the baked Alaska, press the brownies into the bottom of a 20cm/8in round ovenproof dish and top it with a couple of spoonfuls of the chocolate sauce, and top that with all the ice cream, make into a dome shape and put into the freezer to chill.

Whisk the egg whites with 25g of the sugar until stiff peaks form when the whisk is removed. Add the remaining sugar and whisk again until the egg white mixture is stiff and glossy. Remove the dish from the freezer and spoon the meringue mixture over the ice cream to completely cover. Make sure the meringue completely seals the ice cream so no heat can get in to melt it.

Bake for 3-4 minutes (no longer), until the meringue is just golden-brown. Serve drizzled with the chocolate sauce, if you haven’t eaten it all out of the pan.

© Katheryn Rice 2007