Chocolate Brownies

These brownies are fudgy and rich. And to be honest, the taste of it eventually boils down to the kind of cocoa powder you use.

The brownies in the picture were made from a dark cocoa powder and they were great. But our favourite batch was made with Cadbury Cocoa, although we can’t recall where we got it from. So, use the best one you can get your hands on.

Ingredients:

• ½ cup butter (unsalted)
• ½ cup cocoa powder
• ¾ cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp. vanilla essence
• ½ cup plain flour
• ¼ tsp. salt

Instructions:

1. Prepare a 7 inch square tray by lining it with aluminium foil.
2. Preheat the oven to 175 degrees Celsius.
3. Melt the butter. We melted ours in the microwave; defrost setting, one and a half minutes. You can just put it in a pot and melt it over the stove too. But be careful, because butter burns easily. Keep the heat really low and remove from heat before it melts completely as the residual heat will keep melting it anyway.  
4. Add the melted butter, sugar and cocoa powder to a bowl. Using a large spoon, mix really well until everything is well combined. Try to get as much of the sugar dissolved too. But don’t worry if there are some granules remaining as we can take care of that in the next steps.
5. Add the eggs one by one and mix again. This time until the sugar dissolves.
6. Add the vanilla essence and mix again.
7. Stir in the flour and the salt. You have to be very gentle about it. No more vigorous mixing. Just mix gently until all the flour and salt is completely incorporated. If you want to add chocolate chips, nuts, raisins etc., you can throw them in and gently mix in this step too.
8. Pour the mixture into the tray you prepared and spread with the back of a spoon to even it out.
9. Place the tray in the middle rack of your preheated oven and bake for 20 minutes. The top should be slightly cracked but this is one of those cases where when you insert a toothpick in the centre and pull it out there should be a little bit of things sticking to it.
10. Remove from the oven and let it cool down.
11. Once cooled down, cut into squares. You can keep the brownies in an airtight container for around 2-3 days, no refrigeration needed.