Chocolate brownies

Or, as I call them, lunch.

When I ran my Bristol cafes chocolate brownies were a staple, we were never without them, always home made. Occasionally we would add raspberries, or even white chocolate drops just for the hell of it, but really the plain ones were best. Students at both Folk House and Spike Island would buy one, eat half and wrap the other half for later because the chocolate hit is so intense it was enough to see them through until the next break.

Now I am becoming increasingly aware of glucose spikes and the impact of different foods (no, I haven’t joined the Zoe gang) I realise the sugar content in these can make you hit a high, therefore followed by a low. But a little hack taught by Caroline of @everygoodthing of adding yoghurt to this kind of treat helps reduce the severity of the spike. At least that’s what I think she said, and what I am choosing to believe. The brownies I made yesterday have wheat flour in them, but I often substitute that for ground almonds which also would help reduce said spike.

I am not totally sure I understand everything about the spiking thing, in fact I am certain I don’t, except that it’s not-a-good-thing, sending energy sky rocketing then depleting it with the same speed and so making you want more of whatever it was that got you ‘high’. It’s a familiar story in most areas of life really, this constant craving for highs to counteract the lows, when really we are so much better off on an even keel with little doses of unutterable joy to remind to us what being alive is for, and little doses of only just bearable sadness to remind us to be grateful to be so.

I have just eaten a square of my brownie, with a massive dollop of slinky Greek yoghurt, accompanied by my second coffee of the day, drunk from a cup, with a saucer. I’m calling this lunch because there’s no-one here to tell me I can’t. My breakfast was a hard boiled egg, still warm, with some stunning tomatoes and vinaigrette - so protein in the egg, vitamins, fibre and heaven in the tomatoes, spike reducing vinegar in the dressing. I’m so smug I could burst, which is another reason to eat a brownie for lunch, in order to be able to bear my own company.

When I made these little squares of bliss over and over in the cafe I rarely ate them. I got bored of them - definitely a lesson to be learned from that, you can work out what that is. Today is a lovely reminder of what a treat they are, and must be treated (haha) as such. Next batch will be in six months I reckon.

Brownie Recipe

Ingredients

• 150g butter

• 180g dark chocolate

• 150g sugar

• 100g ground almonds self raising flour (or ground almonds)

• ½ tsp baking powder (+ another half if using almonds)

• 3 eggs (I only had 3, and extra one might be nice for extra fluff)

• Greek or plain yoghurt to serve

Method

1. Line a low sided baking tray (about 20 x 30cm) with parchment

2. Melt the choc and butter in a bain marie (a heat proof bowl in a pan of simmering water - making sure not to get any water in the mix or the bowl to touch the bottom of the pan)

3. Meanwhile whip the sugar eggs into a frenzy

4. Add melted mix into frenzy mix, whipping as you go

5. Add baking powder and flour/almonds

6. Pour batter into the tray and put into a preheated oven, about 170 in my mini fan oven, for about 20 minutes - turn the tray around half way through if you have uneven heat like mine.  It needs to be only just cooked with a tiny bit of wobble. Don’t panic if you overcook it, just call it cake and add more yoghurt.

Project Cook The Books

I haven’t done awfully well with this project so far. Meth addled dolphin brain preventing focus (that’s my story anyway) and many things going on to distract me. It’s one of the reasons I cook, to ground myself, but it’s usually with what is to hand (hence brownies - everyone has bars of chocolate in the house don’t they?) and not from a recipe which is why this project is so hard for me to get a grip on. Anyway, I’ll stop bleating now.

Next recipe is from Food For a Happy Gut by Naomi Devlin. It’s a fantastic book which I have, as usual, mostly used for inspiration, and I am not going make any of the delicious dishes this time either. I am going make Beet Kvass, which is a fermented drink made from, yes, you in the second row are correct, beetroots. It is different to the one that Caroline made in our workshop here in July because it’s made with yogurt whey. I’m ridiculously excited to try this, especially as I have make labneh (strained yoghurt) first to get the whey. It’s a salty, earthy, gut punching, healing, eye opener of a drink. Wish me well and expect lots of pink mess.

P.S. One hour post brownie - no unusual dip in energy.