Double Expresso Brownies

I know. I know. It's been agesssssssssssss since my last post. I've had this recipe holed up ever since I came back from Brunei, but I've not had time to write it up. But hopefully, with better weather coming up, I shall be more motivated to cook for fun rather than cooking just to eat. =P

Anyway, this recipe caught my eye because it had espresso powder (which I have a lot of and no idea what to do with it) AND cornflour instead of normal flour. Cornflour! In a brownie! That had to be interesting! I had to make it... so here we go!


What you need:
125g cornflour
2 teaspoons instant espresso powder
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
50g dark cooking chocolate
125g butter
250g caster sugar
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence
75g walnuts, toasted and diced - omitted

What you do:

1. Preheat the oven to 180 C. Grease a 20cm by 30cm baking tin (we used a 30 cm square pan) with melted butter and line with baking paper.
2. Mix the cornflour, espresso powder, baking powder and salt in a mixing bowl.
3. Melt the chocolate and butter together in another bowl. Add in sugar and mix until well-combined. Add in eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add in the vanilla essence and flour mixture. Mix until well combined.
4. Pour brownie batter in prepared baking pan. Bake for 30 minutes, or until set in the center. Allow to cool before cutting into pieces.

Wow. Seriously. Wow. One of the best brownies we've ever made. It rivals the Ultimate Chocolate Brownies as my favourite brownie recipe. Or at least that was what I thought when I made this. Unfortunately, the perils of a terrible long-term memory means... I can't quite remember what this was like.

But I'm fairly sure that it had what I liked about the Ultimate Chocolate Brownies. Crisp and crunchy crust, soft and fudgey inside. That's my idea of a perfect brownie. Add to this the slight mocha flavour of espresso powder + chocolate and you get a winning combo! The cornflour definitely definitely gave a delicious texture... why do we not use it more often in brownies? I have no idea... But I am sticking the recommended label on this!

And that's all i can write about this... one of my favourite brownie recipes so far. I have got to make this again and give my fresh thoughts! If only I had an oven, sigh.

Quote of the day: Be a coffee-drinking individual - espresso yourself!

PS: The Ultimate Chocolate Brownies were successfully made by the SAS Home Science group, so yay!