A wonderfully decadent brownie for that romantic ending to a romantic meal...

 

 

185g unsalted butter

200g dark chocolate

85g plain flour

40g cocoa powder (not drinking chocolate)

75g white chocolate buttons

3 large eggs

275g golden caster sugar

Individual heart-shaped baking tins

Preheat the oven to 160°C.

 

 

METHOD

Cut the butter into small dice, place in a heatproof bowl that will fit over a sauce pan quarter full of water.

The bowl must not touch the water.

Chop the chocolate into small pieces and add to the butter.

Heat the pan slowly until the butter and chocolate have melted, stirring occasionally to mix.

Leave to cool to room temperature.

Sieve the flour and cocoa powder into a large baking bowl, tap the sieve edge to remove any lumps.

Break the eggs into a separate bowl and tip in the sugar.

With an electric mixer on medium speed, whisk the eggs and sugar until they look pale thick and creamy, they should double in volume.

Pour in the cooled chocolate mixture, then very gently fold together with a rubber spatula in a figure of eight action.

Hold the sieve over the mixture and resift the flour and chocolate, shaking from side to side, to cover the top evenly.

Gently fold in this flour using the same gentle figure of eight action as before until it looks lovely and fudgy.

Finally, stir in the white chocolate buttons.

Pour into cake tins and level the top, place into the preheated oven on the middle shelf for 20 minutes.

Check if they are cooked by gently shaking the tin. If they wobble in the middle then bake for a further 5 minutes, until the top has a shiny crust and the sides start to come away from the tin.

Leave to cool completely before removing from the tin.

Dust with icing sugar and serve with chocolate dipped strawberries.