I’m now halfway through my annual leave and starting to feel a bit better. The cough is less present in the day (well unless I walk and talk too much) and now a more an annoying nighttime phenomenon. It is par of the course for me with respiratory infections. I just need to wait this one out and continue to rest.

I was lucky enough to spend one afternoon in my garden basking the in sun. It was glorious. I did nothing except create and listen to Spotify playlists.

I am well aware in the current (and past) state of affairs that this is an absolute luxury. It’s chaos and mayhem out there. So I am grateful that at this point in time I get to enjoy this. Very grateful indeed.

I’m attempting to make a return to baking! I have been craving sweet foods all week so I decided to use up the last two eggs in the fridge by baking some brownies. I found a peanut butter brownie recipe online and just changed the proportion of the ingredients to match my ‘egg limitations’

Ingredients

• 225g crunchy peanut butter
• 200g bar dark chocolate, broken into pieces
• 280g soft light brown sugar
• 3 medium eggs
• 100g self-raising flour

Methods

1. Set aside 50g each of the peanut butter and chocolate. Heat oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4 and line a 20cm square baking tin with baking parchment. Gently melt remaining peanut butter, chocolate and all the sugar in a pan, stirring occasionally, until the sugar has just about melted. Transfer mix into a bowl to cool down slightly. Turn off heat and use a wooden spoon to beat in the eggs one by one. Stir in the flour and scrape into the tin.

2. Melt reserved peanut butter in the microwave on high for 45 secs, or in a pan, until runny, then drizzle over the brownie. Bake for 20-25 mins until it has a crust, but the middle still seems slightly uncooked.

3. Melt reserved chocolate, drizzle over the brownie, then cool in the tin before cutting into squares.

I think I got the calculations just right. The final product came out well. Soft and ‘peanutty’ would be the best way to describe them. After reading some of the comments on the original recipe I chose to add a little bit of butter to the chocolate and peanut butter mixture. I didn’t measure, just scooped out what I thought would be right and it seemed to work. I also didn’t bother with trying to melt the ingredients directly in a pan, instead I did what I normally do and melted them in a bowl, placed in a pan of hot water (bain marie style). On the whole, these brownies are pretty straightforward to make and perfect to eat when they have come out of the oven and still have some warmth. I wasn’t sure about the drizzled chocolate on the top. Maybe because it had not quite set before I started eating the brownies it made for a rather sticky affair! Not bad, part of the joy but a little messy for me. Maybe I just need to be a little more patient!

Reference: https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/peanut-butter-brownies

* now remembering to add the amounts I used, in case I want to make this again

150 grams peanut butter

130 grams dark chocolate

150 grams light brown sugar

2 eggs

70 grams self-raising flou