These rich, dense brownies are made even more delicious and also nicely crunchy by the addition of slightly savoury pretzels. Yes, it really does work. Give it a try and see – or taste.

Makes: 16 squares

Time: 45 minutes + cooling & cutting

Level: Easy

Need: A 20cm/8” square baking tin with reasonably high sides

Ingredients

115g/4oz unsalted butter + a little to grease the tin
250g/9oz golden caster sugar
85g/3oz golden syrup
300g/10oz dark chocolate broken into pieces
3 large eggs
75g/2½oz plain flour
1 Tbsp cocoa powder
Pinch of salt
60g/2oz mini pretzels, broken into pieces

Decorating

60g/2oz plain chocolate
20g/¾oz butter
At least 16 whole mini pretzels

Method

1. Butter the tin and line with baking parchment. Preheat the oven to 160°C / fan 140°C / 325°F/ gas 3.

2. In a large saucepan, melt the butter, sugar & golden syrup until smooth. Don’t let it boil. Remove from the heat and add the chocolate, mixing well. Set aside to cool a little.

3. Whisk the eggs and beat into the chocolate mixture then sift in the flour, cocoa powder and salt. Stir in the broken pretzels.

4. Pour into the tin and tap it on your work surface a couple of times to settle the mixture and dispel any air bubbles. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes.

5. Remove from the oven and leave to cool, ideally in the fridge. (overnight if possible)

6. Turn out and trim the slab then cut into squares, using a wet knife. (NB Inverting the brownie “slab” may give you a flatter top surface for step 7.)

7. Melt the remaining chocolate and butter in a bain marie. Brush it over the brownies and add one or more pretzels to each piece.