Gooey chocolate and Oreo brownies.

I adore all things sweet and chocolatey, when given the opportunity I am a right sucker for chocolate binges. The past two weeks have been a total wardrobe nightmare for me in the sense that I can't stop stuffing my face with chocolate. So on Tuesday I decided to get creative, Instead of spending money on utter calorific nonsense that the shops surrounding my house have on special; I turned to my kitchen cupboards and using the left over cooking chocolate from the eclairs made recently, I launched into making brownies! 

So to not contradict myself in talking about shop bought nonsense I must state that yes, as the title suggests Oreos were used!! But only in one batch, the other were walnut and chocolate brownies. 

I was really looking forward to experimenting with some of my favourite biscuits, and after trailing these brownies out on my obliging family, friends and ever so willing boyfriend; I have come to the conclusion that this is the best recipe for them!

 I have previously attempted others, sometimes using Pinterest to just gather a general consensus of ingredient ratios to work out what I'd need to tweak. This recipe is partially based on Jamie Oliver's Brownie recipe, however I have worked with different qualities, used different ingredients and varied the steps to do what I believe is right. The end result is something purely mind blowing! The centres are warm and gooey, and the Oreos and walnut create a gorgeous taste blend to combat the over sweetness of the sheer quantity of choclate and sugar used. 

However, the biggest problem I have found with brownies is that of how long do they take to bake? Jamie himself suggests 25 minutes maximum, but it's more of a trial and error thing. In my opinion the bigger and deeper the tray, the longer they take to cook, and quite frankly I adore a chunky brownie. So while I use deeper trays when baking, what I would recommend is an oven temperature of 180 degrees, and if they still wobble like jelly at the 40 minute mark, turn that down to 150, just so they don't burn and spoil to try and achieve a nice overall bake. The perfect brownie will still have an ooze to it when you use a fork to pierce the top, unlike with a normal cake where you know that it is done by inserting a fork and having it come out clean, I half wish I had taken pictures to show this now, sorry! 

Either way, 

This was my end result; 

So if you feel inspired to try, you will need; 

INGREDIENTS: 

1- 250g of butter

2- 200g or so! Of cooking chocolate, I like a milk to dark mix!

3- A hand full of nuts, of course this is down to personal preference 

4- 80g of choclate powder

5- 65g of plain flour

6- 1 teaspoon baking powder 

7- 360g of sugar

8- 4 large eggs

The first step is to preheat your oven at 180 degrees!!! 

Then weigh out your ingredients, with the flour and chocolate powder you need to sift them into one large mixing bowl, you don't want lumps in anyway as they affect the texture of the brownies. 

In a second heat proof bowl you need to place the butter, you can just place the full amount straight in, or cut into rough cubes. Next break your chocolate into small squares like so, I have used an equal ratio of dark, milk and white chocolate for this recipe as I feel it adds a nice not overly sweet edge to the end product. 

Add the broken pieces of choclate to your heatproof bowl with the butter and create a ban-Marie. To do this you will need a large saucepan and a heat proof bowl. You fill the pan up with just enough water so it covers an inch or two of the base of the bowl once lowered Into the pan, this creates a gentle way of melting and bonding the butter and choclate. Like below! 

I like to melt the butter first before adding the chocolate, this just makes it sleeker and easier in my opinion. Then add the chocolate to this, very gently and stir, make sure the pan isn't too high as you don't want water splashing into your bowl. 

The chocolate shouldn't take too long to melt as the butter will be pretty warm, it should melt down into a sleek and buttery brown sludge! 

Now turn your attention to the dry ingredients, combine the sifted flour and chocolate powder in one bowl, along with a pinch of salt and a teaspoon of baking powder, try to aim for a semi level teaspoon as this is your rising agent due to the recipe calling for plain flour, and if too much is used then you will taste it when you eat the brownies. If I'm honest, it's not a very nice taste when there's too much! 

Due to always using lightly salted butter (usually bought from tesco as its only 92p!! Sheer bargain) I don't feel the need to add a pinch of salt, however if you choose to use marge or unsalted butter a pinch of salt should be added too. Then add your sugar to the bowl and mix the dry ingredients up. 

Then you need to carefully pour in the chocolate and butter mixture, stirring it in and making sure there is no dry at the bottom of the bowl, or you will end up with undermixed and grainy brownies, also unpleasant tasting. 

Once you have stirred in the wet to the dry, you need to think about any other extras you wish to add to your batter, I have chosen to add a handful of dried walnuts as they are supposedly what any old and orginal brownie recipe calls for. However nuts are purely optional, and if allergic or you just don't enjoy the taste then please do not add them! I have chopped them up, nice and small so they're just an extra flavour. This to me is the perfect size! 

Add the chopped nuts to the batter bowl and if you want it to be extra chocolatey you can always add an assortment of chunks or chips like I have. Make sure to stir these in well as you want a nice even mix, I would recommend waiting for the batter to cool first or the chocolate will just melt. 

After adding your extras, you then need to crack four reasonably sized eggs into another bowl. I like to crack them into a separate container as this way you can clearly see if any sneaky pieces of shell have managed to fall in. Just to make sure you don't end up with crunchy brownies! In the picture used below there are clearly eight eggs, this is due to me making a double batch, so half could be Oreo and the other could be plain. 

Wisk up your eggs and add them a bit at a time to make sure that they are fully mixed into the batter. 

it'll look rather odd at first and a bit slimy, but once it is fully mixed in you should end up with a sleek and glossy batter, like so; 

Any lumps visible in the photo are purely the nuts and the chocolate chips. Leave this to one side and prepare your baking tray, greaseproof paper at this point is a lifesaver as all you have to do is smear a little butter along the bottom and sides of the pan before placing in a cut to size sheet of greaseproof paper. Making sure it is shiny side up, so the brownies will easily peal away and not stick. You then need to take 3-4 Oreos and crumble them up over the bottom of the tray like this

Then spoon in your brownie batter over the top of the crumbled Oreo pieces, using a spatula to ease any mixture stuck to the bowl, as there's no point being wasteful! 

The next step involves using the same spatula to smooth out your mixture evenly in the tray, ensuring that once it is in the oven, it'll have an even bake overall. Even in this photo I'm pretty sure it could be a bit flatter to make sure it won't be uneven. 

Take the rest of your packet of Oreos and crumble them up over the tray, placing the bits about a  third of the way into the gooey batter. Repeat this over the entire top to give a nice covering of crumbled cookie. 

Then place the bad boy into your preheated oven! As stated above it was recommended to bake for 25 minutes, however when I checked at this point it was wobbly like jelly. So it's a trial and error situation, where you need to keep setting the alarm for 10 minutes at a time after it's been in for half an hour. Just to make sure you don't over bake it, you need to aim for it being just a little bit wet and gooey on the inside in order for the perfect and most Incredible brownie!  Your fork should come out a bit messy when you check the centre. My tray was baked to perfection at around 45/50 minutes in my opinion. 

Here is the final result! Next time I will turn the oven down a bit at the half hour mark just so the edges don't rise up and darken as much. It didn't change the taste, and it's purely personal preference as I found the edges a bit chewey, however my dad loved them the most. Make sure that you leave the tray on the side to cool slightly, before you take the brownies out onto a baking rack to cool. You then need to peel the greaseproof paper off of the bottom, before turning them out to cool, do this carefully if they are still hot so you don't peel away any of the brownie. Then cut them up into nice sized chunks like so. I displayed mine on a cake stand I've had in the cupboard for months but just haven't gotten around to using yet. 

Brownies can be enjoyed in a variety of ways, as snacks, as a pudding heated up in a microwave before adding a dollop of cream or a scoop ice cream. But best of all if you make up a large batch you can freeze and defrost them, perfect for students! I hope you have enjoyed this recipe and maybe try it out yourself!