White chocolate and raspberry brownies
Double chocolate brownies, full of white chocolate chunks and fresh raspberries
I spent about 6 months living in Sydney, Australia after law school where I was a paralegal in a city firm. I had a fellow paralegal friend named Michelle who made hand made bags and also incredible brownies which she would bring in to the office. As my leaving gift before I returned to London she gave me her secret family brownie recipe. She swore me to secrecy, it was a recipe which had never before left her family. I’ve since lost touch with Michelle but I have always treasured her brownie recipe and kept the secret.
Since returning home I have changed up the recipe to make what I consider to be the perfect brownie, yes even better than Konditor’s Boston Brownie, and for those of you who have read my Curly Wurly cake entry, you will know how much I love those!
The recipe is different enough from Michelle’s original recipe that I feel happy to share it with you here and don’t feel I’d be breaking the family secret. I hope you make them, enjoy them and this recipe is made to be shared!
Makes about 12-16 brownies depending how big you like them
Time: 50 minutes
Ingredients
185g dark chocolate (about 70% cocoa)
185g unsalted butter
3 large eggs
225g caster sugar
125g plain flour
50g cocoa powder
1 tsp instant coffee powder
150g white chocolate of choice (you can vary the amount to your taste, I usually just buy 1 big bar from the supermarket and use the whole thing. I find depending on the brand these are usually between 100g-180g. At 180g there will be loads of white chocolate in these brownies!
150g fresh raspberries, rinsed and patted dry
Instructions
Line a deep baking tray measuring approx. 23cm by 28cm with baking parchment. It will be easier to remove the brownies from the tray at the end if you take the parchment so it overhangs at least 2 sides of the tray as well e.g. along the long edges.
Preheat the oven to 180c/160c fan/ gas mark 4
Melt the butter and dark chocolate. I usually place a small pan of water on the stove to gently boil then place a glass mixing bowl on top. This gently melts the butter and chocolate. If you can’t be bothered with that, you can just microwave them but be careful not to fry the contents. Around 600w for 2 and a half minutes, stirring in the middle should do it. Leave it to one side to cool.
Beat the sugar and eggs together in a mixing bowl until the sugar feels mostly dissolved and the mixture looks airy and pale, bit like a runny custard.
When the chocolate mixture has cooled so it is just warm but not hot, stir it in to the egg mixture.
Mixing the brownie batter here.
Mix the flour, coffee powder and cocoa together then sieve it in to the bowl and gently fold in until just mixed.
Chop the white chocolate in to chunky pieces (around a little under 1cm square) and fold in to the brownie mixture.
Pour the brownie mix in to the prepared baking tray. Add the raspberries in to the brownie tray. I like to dot them around quite liberally to ensure that every brownie will have at least 1 raspberry. Give them a firm push in to the mix.
I used a bit too much flour in this batch and so the mix here is thicker than it should be. Usually the raspberries would sink in a little more. I kept a close eye on the final few minutes of baking and cut the time slightly short to compensate. They still came out great!
Bake in the oven for around 35 minutes. The brownies should be starting to come away from the edges of the pan and the mixture should not wobble in the middle if you shake it but it should not be fully baked through like a normal cake.
Personally I like brownies best when they have a little crispness on the outside pieces but the middle pieces are still moist and gooey. When testing them with a skewer, it should come out as what you might usually consider a little bit underdone by normal cake standards as opposed to the skewer coming out totally clean.
Pictured here, the best double chocolate and raspberry brownies ever!
Wait for the brownies to cool as much as will power will allow, then remove from the baking tray and slice in to equal pieces. These are very rich brownies and so I usually cut them in to at least 12 pieces as pictured.
These brownies are very rich, they should be gooey and moist in the middle. Straight out the oven they are quite soft and so can be hard to remove from the baking tray, so I suggest waiting for them to cool and firm up a bit. Though the first brownie must be eaten still warm from the oven, that’s a rule!
