Peanut butter brownies

Sometimes you start to make a recipe and realise you don't have all your usual ingredients, so frustrating! This happened to me a while ago when I was making brownies for my good friends Bronwyn and Rory, so I tweaked my ingredients and I'm glad I did, this is the best brownie recipe I've ever made! 

If you like your brownies dense and super fudgy these are for you! You can omit the peanut butter to make plain brownies, or perhaps replace with hazelnut spread if peanuts aren't your thing. I urge you to try these they are truly indulgent. 

Ingredients

450g unsalted butter, 700g dark chocolate (70% coco), 3 eggs, 2 tbsp cold espresso coffee, 1tsp good quality vanilla extract, 1 and 1/8 cup white caster sugar, 1/2 cup milk, 1 cup 00 grade flour, 1/4 cup coco powder, 1tsp baking powder, pinch salt, 8tbsp smooth peanut butter. 

Preheat the oven to 180 Celsius. Melt the butter and chocolate in a bowl suspended over a pan of gently simmering water to melt. As soon as it has melted, stir to combine and take it off the heat to cool. 

In a seperate bowl whisk the eggs, sugar,  coffee, vanilla and salt. Once the chocolate has cooled slightly tip in to the eggs  and stir very well to combine. (If you do this whilst the chocolate is too hot you will get scrambled eggs!)

Finally put the flour, coco and baking powder in to a seive and seive it directly in to the chocolate mix. Stir the flour in but don't beat it, you don't want to over mix, just gently fold until well combined. Add the milk and give it one final mix.

Tip the batter in to a buttered baking dish and smooth the top level.  Next, if using, put blobs of peanut butter over the top and using a knife swirl gently in to the batter, don't combine too much, leave the swirls visible. 

Bake on the middle shelf for 15 minutes, then turn the heat down to 150 Celsius and cover the top of the brownie lightly with greaseproof paper, bake for a further 10 minutes. Don't overcook it! A wooden cocktail skewer inserted in the middle should come out just clean. If it's still sloppy in the middle put back in to the oven for 5 more minutes. Remove from the heat and cool. Cut in to squares, ideally when still slightly warm and serve with ice cream and perhaps some toffee sauce.