On the same evening they made my skinny peanut butter flapjacks, I also whipped up a batch of brownies. Why did I do this I, hear you ask? Well, the flapjack recipe requires three egg whites which means of course that there were three egg yolks sitting around waiting to be either used up or thrown away. Obviously I wasn’t going to throw away food but I needed to use them straight away otherwise they might sit in the fridge go “funny” and then eventually be thrown away. So I flipped a few pages backwards in my “Have Your Cake and Eat It” recipe book and found this recipe for a quick chocolate brownies. The beauty was that I had all the ingredients, including a jar of chopped hazelnuts that I was wondering what I was going to do with and now I found an easy solution.

The brownies are quite tasty! I love them. Sweet, moist and crunchy. I’ve been taking them to work with me and they provide a nice late afternoon snack with a cup of herbal tea. Very nice.

Ingredients

150 g ( 5 1/2 oz) unsalted butter or non-diary substitute

75 g dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids), broken into pieces

2 teaspoons of cocoa powder

150g (5 1/2 oz) roasted mixed nuts (hazelnuts, pistachios, peanuts, pecans, cashews, almonds), roughly chopped

50g (1 3/4 oz) mixed dried fruits (cherries, cranberries, sultanas, raisins)

3 large eggs

300g (10 1/2 oz) soft light brown sugar

75g (2 1/2 oz) plain flour

1 heaped teaspoon baking powder

Instructions

1. Pre-heat the oven to 170 C/gas 3. Line the base and sides of a 30 x 20 cm (12 x 8″) 10 with nonstick baking parchment.
2. Melt the butter and chocolate together in a heatproof bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water. Remove from the heat and stir in the cocoa. Stir in all the remaining ingredients. Transfer to the prepared tin and press down. Bake for 25 – 30 minutes until just set.
3. Remove from the oven, transfer to a wire rack and leave to cool in the tin, before cutting into 16 brownies.

Store for up to 7 days in an airtight container at room temperature or chilled. Suitable for freezing.

Variation replace the nuts and fruit with 200 g (7 ounces) raspberries folded through the batter before baking or add the grated zest of two fresh oranges to the brownie batter before baking.

Reference: Mich Turner, ‘Have Your Cake and Eat It’