double chocolate orange brownies

I do love a good brownie. I remember making brownies for the first time and was surprised by the amount of butter that went into a batch...yep, it's pretty much one block of 250g butter per batch of brownies. I suggest you eat just a sliver if you're after a suger hit but inevitably, the brownie is one that's hard to resist!

I was actually quite excited making this batch of brownies. I'd just been to Victoria's basement and bought myself a slice/brownie tin and well, the recipe was a new one I found in Ravinder Bhogal's 'Cook in Boots' (also a very recent purchase) and well, it'd been awhile since my last batch and this recipe was different but not too different to put me off.

Ingredients: 225g unsalted butter, 225g roughly broken chocolates, 4 eggs, 300g caster sugar, 2 tsp vanilla extract, zest of 1 orange, 2 tbsp orange juice, 1/2 tsp sea salt, 150g plain flour, 1 tsp baking powder, 100g white chocolate chips.

Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Grease and line an baking tin. Put the butter and chocolate into a heatproof bowl over a pan of hot water and leave to melt. In a bowl, beat the eggs and then add the sugar, vanilla, orange zest and juice and salt. Next, fold in the flour and baking powder. Pour in the melted chocolate, throw in the choc chips and give it one last stir.

Pour the batter into the baking tin and bake for 35-40 minutes. Test it with a skewer - it should be thin and crisp on the top, and gooey but not raw in the middle. Leave it to cool before cutting or removing from the tin.

Need I say more?

This recipe is so richly dense that you'll only be able to eat a sliver or two each time. Great thing is that it keeps well in the fridge (up to a week). Simply cut yourself a piece and let it rest to room temperature. Otherwise, my favourite is to whiz in the microwave for 10-15 seconds (depending on the size of the slice) and serve up with plain vanilla icecream.

Whilst the white chocolate chips might seem like an optional item in this recipe, I suggest you keep these in. Once cooked, the white choc chips give it the added texture - a slight chewy crunchiness at the base.

Anyway, there's a number of recipes I want to try in 'Cook in Boots'; stay tuned!