Belinda Jeffery

Double Chocolate Macadamia Brownies

This rich, fudge-y brownie with its lovely crackled top is thickly studded with roasted macadamias and chunks of chocolate. It has a wonderful velvety texture and just melts in your mouth.

  • Makes 12-14 brownies

 

  • 90g roasted macadamias
  • 1/4 cup (35g) plain flour
  • 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 225g good-quality dark chocolate, cut into chunks
  • 2/3 cup (150g) castor sugar
  • 180g unsalted butter, at room temperature
  • 2 x 60g eggs
  • 3 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 120g good-quality milk chocolate, cut into small chunks
  • Icing sugar, for dusting (optional)

Set your oven to 160C. Butter a 22cm square cake tin. Line it with a sheet of buttered foil, then line the base with buttered baking paper. Set it aside.

Pulse the macadamias in the food processor to chop them coarsely. Tip them into a bowl and toss them with a couple of teaspoons of the flour. Set the bowl aside.

Whiz the remaining flour, baking powder and salt in the processor until they’re just combined, then tip them into another bowl. Add the dark chocolate and sugar to the processor and whiz them together until the chocolate is very finely chopped. Add the butter, eggs and vanilla extract to the chocolate mixture and whiz them together for 1 minute, stopping to scrape down the sides once or twice with a spatula. Add the flour mixture and pulse it in only until everything just combines into a thick batter. Use a spatula to stir in the macadamias and milk chocolate chunks. Smooth the batter into the prepared tin.

Sit the tin in the oven and bake the brownie for about 40 minutes or until a wooden toothpick inserted in the middle comes out with moist, but not wet, crumbs on it. Cool the brownie in the tin on a wire rack. Once it’s cool, pop it in the fridge to chill.

When you’re ready to cut it, grasp the foil and use it to ease the whole brownie out of the tin. Invert it onto a flat plate and gently peel away the foil and paper, then invert it again onto a chopping board.

Slice the brownie into bars with a hot, dry knife. Just before serving the bars, dust them with icing sugar if using, to give them pretty snowy tops. Layer any leftover bars between sheets of baking paper in an airtight container. Store them in the fridge for 10 days or so (or freeze them for up to 4 weeks). Return them to room temperature to serve.