As part of my gift to my mum on Mother's Day I made her some chocolate brownies. I found a gluten free recipe that used dark chocolate. My mum can't have gluten and she loves dark chcocolate so this recipe was perfect!! I had never used this recipe before but it had won the great taste award in 2011 so I decided to give it a go. I also wanted to give them a try because they are healthier than normal brownies. Obviously they are not super healthy but they use dark chocolate instead of milk and there is no gluten in them.
The recipe was easy to follow and I didn't have to much difficulty baking. I am not a big dark chocolate fan and I don't really enjoy cakes made out of dark chocolate but I suprisingly enjoyed these. They are rich with a moist texture. I definatley recommend this recipe. You could make these as a gift or just if you want to treat yourself. If you try these I hope you enjoy them!
Ingredients:
185g butter chopped into chunks
185g dark chocolate broken into rough chunks. I used Lindt excellence 70% cocoa
250g caster sugar (I used about 225g)
3 eggs
1tsp vanilla essence
110g gluten free flour (sieved) I used the doves farm plain white flour
200g sour dried cherries. I couldn't find these anywhere so I had to buy a bag of dried berries and cherries. I took out all of the raisins and tried to separate cherries as much as I could but I thought that the dried blueberries and berries went quite well in this recipe instead of just cherries.
Method:
1. Preheat your oven. 350°F 180°C 160°C- fan oven
2. Line a baking tray with grease proof paper
3. Whisk up your eggs, sugar and vanilla essence together on a high speed for around 10 minutes until the mixture is light, pale and fluffy. I used a food processor to do this but an electric hand wisk would work fine. I whisked mine for around 20 minutes until I couldn't bare the noise any more. I did this because I was waiting for my mixture to become fluffy like air as it would if you were making meringue but because we were using the whole egg and not just the white it wont become fluffy like air. So when you are whisking yours don't wait for it to become really fluffy.
4. Melt the chocolate and butter in a bowl over a pan of water.
5. Fold the melted chocolate mixture into the whipped egg mixture. Make sure you do this when the chocolate has cooled but don't leave it to cool for too long otherwise it will thicken and start to set.
6. Fold in the sieved flour. Make sure it is really mixed in
7. Fold in the cherries/dried fruit
8. Pour into your baking tray and smooth it out so it is even across the tray
9. Bake for about 30 minutes. I baked mine for this time in a fan oven and they came out perfect.
10. Let the brownies cool and then slice them to your choice in size.
For a finishing touch on the brownies you could dust them with icing sugar
Recipe: http://www.how2bglutenfree.com/Gluten-free-brownie.html
