Brownies

These are the famous 'Hevz's Brownies' that quite a few of us from Vi's Pantry rave about. They are very quick and easy, and use cocoa powder instead of melted chocolate.

I decided that I would make the simplest (and therefore cheapest) version of the recipe to see how they turned out. No vanilla extract, choc chips or nuts.

Melt butter in a pan and whisk in the cocoa until smooth. Measure out flour, beat eggs in a large bowl and mix in sugar.

Add butter/cocoa to egg and sugar mixture and mix well. Fold in flour.

Pour mixture into lined pan (I used a square Pyrex dish roughly 20 x 20 cm lined with two strips of baking paper).

Cook at 180 C for 20 mins or so, in middle of oven, until brownies are firm to touch and the top is matt and cracked looking. Don't overcook - the inside should still be quite soft.

(This time the top of my brownies looked bubbly rather than cracked; the same bubbling happened with my Malteser Cake sponges - I'm not sure why this is happening but luckily it doesn't affect the taste.)

Cool 10 mins in tin before cutting into squares.

These turn out really well, and are still delicious without all the extras, which is great if you have to make a dessert or treat with not a lot of money!

Ingredients:
100 g butter
50 g cocoa powder
2 eggs
200 g caster sugar (I used 150 g because I like things not v sweet)
50 g self-raising flour

*If you want to add the extras: before folding in flour mix in 1 tsp vanilla extract and 50 g chocolate chips or chunks (milk or white choc) or chopped pecans.*