Brain Brownies

Brain Brownies

These are always a winner at this time of year!

A rich, fudgey brownie base, with strawberry buttercream brains, and added fruity gore.

As always, the better quality ingredients you use, the better the outcome, so please go for real butter and decent quality chocolate.

Brain Brownies

Makes one 30 x 18cm tray - recommended 16 servings

Ingredients:

Brownies:

• 185 g butter. Baking block also works, but nothing out of a tub or they won't have the fudgey texture.

• 185g dark chocolate, min. 54% cocoa solids. The higher the cocoa solids, the more bitter the chocolate taste, so if you love it very dark you can go up to 85%

• 150g plain flour

• 1/4 tsp baking powder

• 45g cocoa

• 3 large eggs

• 310g light brown soft sugar. Caster or golden caster will also work, but the LBS gives a fudgier texture

Buttercream:

• 160g very soft butter - warm it slightly so it is almost melting

• 320g icing sugar, sifted to remove the lumps

• 10g freeze-dried strawberry powder. If you can't get hold of this, you could add a little pink food colouring and strawberry flavouring

Topping:

• Strawberry jam, preferably with seeds & big pieces of fruit

• Dash of boiling water

• Optional red food colouring

Method:

For the brownies:

1. Line the baking tray with parchment. No need to do this if you're using a foil tray.

2. Melt together the butter and chocolate over a very low heat. Leave to cool for at least 20 minutes, but keep stirring as it cools so it doesn't set firm at the edges.

3. Preheat the oven to 140C/280F if you have a fan oven, otherwise 160C/320F or gas mark 3.

4. In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs and sugar until very light and frothy.

5. Sift together the flour, cocoa and baking powder until well mixed.

6. Fold together both 'wet' bowls, then gently fold in the dry ingredients.

7. Bake for 40 minutes. The middle should still have a slight wobble at this point.

8. Leave to cool completely, then chill overnight in the fridge before slicing.

For the buttercream:

1. Sift the icing sugar and strawberry powder to remove lumps, and mix into the butter. You can use a wooden spoon, silicon spatula, electric whisk, or the beater attachment of a stand mixer. Just be aware that if you use a whisk you may get air bubbles in your buttercream, but that's really not a big deal.

2. Leave your buttercream to stand for 5-10 mins so the sugar particles can dissolve into the butter. Using this method saves having to mix for a long time. Add a small splash of boiling water straight from the kettle, mix it in, and using a silicon spatula, paddle back & forth against the side of the bowl to smooth the buttercream.

To assemble:

1. Fill a piping bag with the buttercream. You can use a large round nozzle, or you can just cut off the tip of the icing bag. Burp the bag and tie or twist the end to prevent a messy escape.

2. Pipe the buttercream over the brownies in a brain pattern. Don't overthink it!

3. Loosen the jam with a little boiling water, adding food colouring if you wish. Throw the jam over the buttercream as messily as possible,

Keep airtight in a cool dry place - these need to be eaten within about 48 hours.