Gluten-free Chocolate Brownie

How YOU doin’, my lovelies?

Are you feeling you’re surging head-long into autumn 🍂 already?

Fancy some comfort food today?

Well look no further than here, peeps.  Easy peasy chocolate brownies are heading your way!

I’m enjoying spending time with visiting family at the moment.  I was thinking about what to make for tea for when the travelers arrived from various airports and because of varying dietary needs I settled on jacket potatoes 🥔 and a help yourself buffet of toppings, mostly vegan.

So far so good.  Simple fare. Comfort food.  Perfect for autumn 🍂.
(I’ve found those leaves and I’m not afraid to use them!)

Ok, so what’s for pud? Well, one of the travelers was arriving on her birthday and a birthday gal’s got to have a 🎂, right?  Well again dietary requirements led, (and quite simply my huge love for them) which immediately led me to gluten free, dairy free but definitely NOT taste free chocolate brownies.  

I searched my blog for my recipe.  I found the saga of my disaster diabetic birthday cake (READ ABOUT MY DISASTER OF A CAKE HERE!!) but all it yielded on brownies was a promise of the recipe a year ago on THIS POST HERE.  So keeping to my promise, albeit a little after the event, here’s my recipe for “the best brownies I’ve ever tasted “.  Not my words, but those of the birthday girl. 

Gluten free Chocolate Brownies 

Ingredients 

2 oz dark chocolate 

3 1/2 oz butter (I used dairy free butter as one diner was dairy-free)

7 oz caster sugar (fortunately none were diabetic!)

2 eggs, lightly beaten

2 tspn vanilla extract 

3 oz ground almonds

2 tspn baking powder 

Pinch of salt

4 oz chopped walnuts

Tip: To conserve my effort and the planet’s energy, I make up two and pop one in the freezer, sectioned up and split into smaller batches.  This works well with the choc, walnuts and ground almonds as doubling the quantities uses up the whole bar/bag so there are no niggly little bits left in the cupboard!

Makes 16 pieces 

Method

Preheat the oven to 180c/350F/gas mark 4.

Line an 8” square tin with baking paper or grease well with butter.

Melt the choc in a bowl over a saucepan of rolling-boil water. 

Cream the butter and sugar till fluffy and light yellow. then beat in the eggs gradually, followed by the vanilla and melted choc.

Stir in the ground almonds, salt and baking powder then fold in the walnuts. 

Spread in the baking tin and bake for about 30-40 minutes, depending on the speed of your oven.

Note:  I usually check with a sharp knife after 30 minutes, and often pop back in for another five or so minutes. 

However long you bake. the knife tip should come out dry when baked sufficiently. 

Note:  if baking two cakes on separate shelves as I do, then set your timer to switch their shelf positioning after 20 minutes 

Cool and then decorate if required before cutting carefully into 16 pieces (2 inch squares), or cut in larger pieces of you're feeling truly naughty 😉 (which I was on this occasion !)

I sometimes decorate with just a dusting of icing sugar, but a birthday brownie calls for a bit of a white chocolate drizzle eh?  

And as on this occasion we had something to celebrate.

So I added birthday 🎂 candles of course!

Enjoy!

I hope you can see beyond the very basic photographs - I was too concerned 😧 about eating this deliciousness to think about staging my cake!

A la perchoine,

Mary x.