5 baking tips for the best chocolate brownies

Natalia Alexeeva, the co-founder of Notting Hill chocolate shop Alexeeva & Jones, shares an easy recipe for brownies below, along with her expert advice on how to make sure they’re gooey and delicious

1. Brownies don’t require that many ingredients so the star of the show – the chocolate – needs to be good! Use the best quality chocolate.

2. Bring your ingredients to room temperature before starting to cook. They will combine much better that way.

3. Melt the chocolate and butter slowly otherwise you burn out some of the delicate flavours of the chocolate, and the eggs can start to scramble.

4. Don’t under-bake your brownies. The sought-after ‘gooey-ness’ will come from the mixture being right, not from taking them out of the oven early.

5. Leave the brownies to cool properly as they then come out of the baking tray more easily and neatly, if you can resist! They can be re-heated in 15 seconds in a microwave, or you can add a hot chocolate sauce! This goes well with cold ice-cream – we recommend the Purbeck Vanilla Bean.

MORE: 5 HOT TRENDS IN BAKING BY TOP CHEFS

Dark chocolate brownies

Serves 16

Ingredients

200g Madagascar chocolate or any premium quality chocolate ideally using single plantation beans. 85 or 100% cacao coarsely chopped.
100g butter
4 large eggs
200g caster sugar
50g flour
85g cacao powder
100g walnuts
0.5 tsp vanilla
A pinch of salt

Melt chocolate and butter and then leave to cool. Make sure that the bottom of the bowl where you put chocolate and butter is not in contact with the hot water. It should melt slowly.
Put sugar, eggs and vanila in a different bowl and whisk it until light and creamy. Add flour, cacao and salt. Stir together well. Add chocolate and butter mixture, make sure it's not too hot. Add nuts.
Preheat the oven to 180C. Use baking tin about 40x24cm. Spoon the mixture into the tin and bake it for 25 minutes. Remove from oven and leave to cool. Slice into 4-5cm squares.

By Natalia Alexeeva