(By the way, if you work for Lomography UK, and were looking forward to your monday treat, but are now wondering how you're going to hide it under your keyboard or in a film canister and pretend you've eaten it, go with me here! Just give me two minutes..)
So yesterday Dikki and i went to visit my friend and fellow hooper Gina, and her husband Wayne. I make hula hoops, and Gina wanted a custom size so came to me. She had previously mentioned that as Wayne is the caretaker for a college they live onsite in the school house, so i delivered the hoop to her and took the opportunity to see their amazing home and massssssssive garden - featuring a rather impressive vegetable patch where they've had a great season of giant onions, giant squash, giant kale and giant courgettes. They very kindly picked us some fine specimens and sent us home with proper local dulwich organics!
As usual, i was already planning to do some baking today, but the courgettes had me googling. I'd been half planning to make carrot cake, so thought i'd do carrot and courgette cake, but when i came across a recipe for chocolate courgette brownies on the Corner Cottage Bakery Blog my plan was sealed! (Dikki was not convinced)
I adapted the recipe slightly, adding crushed walnuts, milk and white chocolate chips for a bit more texture and added sweetness. I also changed some of the quantities by a teeny bit. Here's what i did...
Ingredients
120ml vegetable oil
200grams caster sugar
100g dark brown sugar
3tsp vanilla extract
250gram plain flower
70gram cocoa (it really is worth using the best you can get. I think the richness of the Green & Black's really helps these brownies)
1.5tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
250gram courgette, peeled and grated
Chocolate chips and walnuts optional
Method
1. Preheat the oven to 180o/c
2. Mix together vegetable oil with the sugars and vanilla
3. Stir in the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt
4. Stir in the courgette, chocolate chips and walnuts until it's all mixed together and you can't see any green courgette anymore
5. Spoon the mixture into an oven tray lined with greaseproof paper. Bake for 25 minutes
As Hanna says on the original recipe, and as you can see in the picture above, it does make a very dry batter. The more you stir it the moister it gets, as the water comes out of the courgette. I think i should have stirred mine a bit more, or maybe added a splash of water, as my brownies didn't quite bind together enough in the oven
The final product is deliciously moist, with a proper chewy top. As i said, mine's a little crumbly, but still delicious - even a dubious Dikki says he wouldn't know there was courgette in it.
Give it a go, these are proper moist, chewy, chocolatey brownies, that actually do count as one of your five a day!
1 comment:
They look amazing, especially with the white chocolate and walnuts! Ive made a couple of batches and sometimes it does need a splash of milk, depends how watery the courgette is :) Your last photo is really good!
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