Brownies recipe

I find that nothing works better for me than cooking when I’m feeling blue, when a heartache is just stuck ‘there’: the process of cooking, getting my hands sticky with dough or sauce or juices, moving around the kitchen with a purpose, stirring real hard and releasing all that pent-up energy works like some sort of therapy, and clears my mind of all negative thoughts and feelings, at least for a while!

And there’s nothing I like more than baking brownies: love the simplicity of it, its smell drifting around the house, love how (when I get them rightly baked) they are a bit creamy and thick, love to share them and see people’s faces light up when enjoying them… And it so happens that our recipe hasn’t changed a bit since an American English teacher of my mom came home to teach me how to make them: I was around 11 years old then and was thrilled to be working in the kitchen like a grown-up, and what’s more, making a yummy chocolate cake that was so easy I could do it by myself! -well, OK, mom had to melt the chocolate and get the oven ready; help me stir because adding the flour made the mixture too thick for me to be able to move the wooden spoon around; and of course holding the mixing bowl while we poured all that brown sticky goodness in the baking tray… But apart from that, it was all Marta’s work!

So here it is, my beloved recipe for you to try and have fun!

(The quantities I indicate serve for a baking tray of a size of an ISO A4 paper sheet, with the cake reaching around 4 cm (1.6 in): I usually just cover it with some baking sheet paper, but butter and flour will just do in avoiding the dough to stick to the tray)

Brownies (thanks to David F., wherever you may be now!)

• 60g of unsweetened cocoa powder
• 4 tbsp vegetable oil
• 100g butter
• 350g sugar (1/2 white sugar, 1/2 brown sugar)
• 4 eggs (medium size)
• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 130g flour
• chopped nuts of choice

1. Preheat the oven at 180ºC (356ºF); evenly spread a tiny bit of butter on all the surface, and sprinkle with a little flour, the baking tray; leave to rest in the fridge (if you just don’t want to lazily put a baking paper sheet over it right before pouring the mixture in it, like I do…)
2. Melt the cocoa, butter and oil in a double boiler (or bain marie): throw them in a recipient that you can place over a pan with water, that you’ll then slowly heat up, just under boiling point -the rising water vapour will melt the butter, thus making the cocoa powder+butter+oil turn into a gorgeous looking melted chocolate… but beware! Unless you like your chocolate REALLY bitter, I don’t advise you to taste it, however enticing it looks – of course, you can taste it so you know what I mean, but don’t come later telling me I didn’t warn you! Leave aside to cool down.
3. In a big mixing bowl: add sugar, eggs and vanilla extract, and stir with a wooden spoon. Not much stirring needed, just enough to evenly mix the ingredients.
4. Make sure the chocolate is at least lukewarm, and pour it on the sugar-eggs mix. Again, do not stir with much enthusiasm, when all has turned dark brown, you’re ready for the next step!
5. Add the flour: I like to add it little by little, so I don’t have flour all over the counter and myself; it gets thick by now, so it’s harder to mix everything… And once more, don’t overdo it – we just don’t want any air to get into the batter, we want our brownies to be think and sticky, don’t we?
6. When you’re done mixing the flour, add the chopped nuts of your liking, in the quantity you feel like…
7. Now, pour the batter in the baking tray and put it in the oven: it should take around 30 minutes, but I like to check after 20-25 minutes: I put a skewer through the center of the tray and touch the back of my hand with it: if it comes out (very) hot and clean, just a bit oily, then brownies are done! If not (i.e. it’s lukewarm and really sticky, obviously stained with batter), leave for a bit longer, but check regularly because it would be easy to get them too dry (this is not the kind of cake that suffers from opening the oven before it’s time, don’t worry about that).
8. When it’s done, take out of the oven and leave to cool inside the tray: when they’re lukewarm you can proceed to cut them in the size you prefer – I like sort of small squares that I can have in either one or two bites, not the big fat ones they serve you in restaurants or coffee shops… but that’s just me.

Keep them in an airtight container and enjoy them!