Cranberry and Orange Brownies

Mmm brownies! Don't they smell so good when cooking? Believe me they smell even more heavenly if you throw some chocolate scented with orange oil into the equation! I was stalking the cooling rack rather impatiently, waiting in anticipation for them to be cool enough to eat and handle!

I nearly always bake the brownies from BBC Good Food but decided to try a different recipe for a change, which called for just the chocolate and no cocoa powder or other enhancers, as I wanted to see how the chocolate performed on its own. Also, a 50g quantity of chocolate helped as I had already started nibbling on this lovely chocolate before deciding to test it in a recipe! There was one square left as this goes to print..

Brownie recipe adapated from Just Like Mother Used To Make, by Tom Norrington-Davies

125g unsalted butter, plus a little extra to grease your pan (or cheat and use silicon 'tin' and baking parchment sheets!)

50g bitter chocolate, I used Orange Mantra

50g self-raising flour

pinch salt

125g caster sugar

25g dried cranberries (original recipe calls for 125g broken walnut pieces but have a guest with nut allergy so steered clear!)

2 large eggs beaten

drop vanilla essence (I use extract)

Pre-heat your oven 180o/ 160o fan/ 350f. Grease/ line a 8inch baking tin/ tray

Melt the butter, remove from the heat and add broken up chocolate, stirring gently until all melted

Sift the flour, sugar, salt and cranberries. Fold in the butter mixture, then the eggs and vanilla, it will look quite runny at this stage!

Pour into your tin and bake for up to 30 minutes or until soft in the middle and appear cooked through. Allow to cool in the tin until mixture slightly comes away from the sides, transfer to a cooling rack, cut into desired shape and go wait in another room until cooled down or you will have burnt fingers and tongue.

The brownie texture reminded me a little of the kits I remember my mum buying when I was young, which came complete with a little cardboard tray for baking them in! Fortunately they are good memories but rather improved, as these ones were quite moist and unburnt in comparison! The beautiful Orange Mantra chocolate, which can be found at Chocolate and Love's website really did shine but with divided guest opinions, if you are a die-hard milk chocolate fan these brownies are probably not going to be your cup of tea, however if you like the dark side, I thoroughly recommend!

I had attempted to use my new Ipod touch to take the pictures of these but not a great success, will go back to old phone I think!

Just look at the pretty packaging:

What's more its Organic, fair trade, dairy, gluten, GMO free and suitable for vegans! (the chocolate, not the brownies sorry!) How can you resist?

Many thanks to Eliza and Chocolate and Love for sending me the gorgeous bars :)