Forgive the title, I just couldn’t resist playing with words – well, I was an English teacher for over 30 years. (Yes, you’re right, I ought to know better) Anyway, these are rich, yummy, flavourful and gooey. The recipe is very adaptable and quite forgiving, so please feel free to tweak it to create equally lovely variations, I know I will. Watch this space.

Makes: 16 squares from a 20cm x 20cm tin.

Takes: Maybe under 30 minutes if you get a move on. This recipe is based on an original by Jamie Oliver from his 30 minute meal series. (which is brilliant – buy the book) He claims he can make the original version in under 14 minutes.

Level: Dead easy

Needs: 20cm (8”) square tin or you could use a 20cm x 30cm for a thinner brownie. To follow the instructions you need a food processor, but you could adapt the recipe if you don’t have one.

Ingredients

175g/6oz milk chocolate, broken up, or use chips
50g/1.75oz white chocolate, “ “ “ “ “
275g/9.5oz unsalted butter, softened
225g/8oz golden caster sugar
50g/1.75g cocoa powder
30g/1oz coffee powder*
75g/2.5oz self-raising flour
½tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
4 eggs
100g/3.5oz glace cherries, quartered or/and halved **

* It might be OK to use granulated coffee, but I haven’t tried that.

** I didn’t coat my cherries in cocoa powder, so they sank. It wasn’t a problem though. I’ll let you decide what to do.

Method

1. Oven on to 180C/ Fan 160C /375F/Gas 4. Line a 20cm (8”) square tin and line with baking parchment. (This gives 16 nice thick brownies. You could use a 20 x 30 tin for thinner ones, but reduce the baking time by around 5 – 10 minutes.) NB I no longer grease or butter my brownie tins, I simply wet the tin with water. Provided, I’ve cut the parchment big enough to leave no spaces it’s fine – it stays in place and leaves no greasy washing up.)

2. Break up or grate the chocolate. Cut up and/or soften the butter.

3. Put everything except the eggs, white chocolate and cherries in the food processor and whizz it all together until nearly combined. While the processor is still running, add in the eggs one at a time and let it all come together.

4. Spread the mixture evenly in the tin then add the cherries and white chocolate. Press them in lightly.

5. Bake for 20 – 30 minutes. Keep checking and remove before fully set. It needs to be wobbly, but not wet in the middle. When baked, leave for ten minutes then turn it out onto a wire rack to cool fully. If the surface is not to your liking, invert it carefully.

6. Put it in the fridge for half an hour then cut.

Click this link for more tasty traybake recipes, or have a look at the rest of my site for lots of other great sweet and savoury recipes. If you’d like to make a comment or ask a question please do, via the contact page.

Here are some more of my brownies and blondies that I’d love you to try:

Mint-Choc Brownies on a Biscuit Base