Recipe: Red Velvet Brownies

It felt like Autumn on Saturday, which is okay by me. It means it’s almost time for wooly sweaters, cool afternoons and that renewed sense of inspiration that comes with each September (or is that just me?). I spent an hour in the morning on a park bench across the street, surrounded by flowers, drinking my tea from Paul that I’ve become addicted to every morning, reading travel magazines and watching a photography session following a colourful Indian wedding.

Then it started to rain and I settled in to some baking, which I haven’t done in a while.

Red Velvet Brownies are the kind of recipe that is great to make, eat one or two and then share the rest with friends or colleagues. They are definitely not diet friendly, but they sure are delicious! It’s more fun to bake for other people to enjoy anyway. The recipes for both the Red Velvet Brownies themselves and the Cream Cheese Frosting came from myrecipes.com. Let’s start with the brownies, which are incredibly easy to make. Ingredients for Brownies:

1 (4-oz.) bittersweet chocolate baking bar, chopped (that’s 113g, but I used closer to 200g)
3/4 cup butter
2 cups sugar
4 large eggs
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 (1-oz.) bottle red liquid food coloring (that’s pretty much the same as a bottle you find here in London)
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon salt

To prepare, preheat the oven to 350F / 176C and find a 9 inch square baking pan. Line the pan with foil with an inch or two sticking out on the sides. Grease lightly.

First step is to microwave the chocolate and butter so they melt. Use a decent sized bowl since the rest of the ingredients will be added in to the melted chocolate. I broke the chocolate into pieces so it was quicker.

It’s best to stir every 30 seconds or so. It will take about 1.5 – 2 minutes.

Then just stir it all up until it’s smooth.

Add in the sugar and stir.

It will look a bit lumpy but it doesn’t matter.

Now add in the eggs, one by one, stirring after each one.

It should look much smoother when you are finished.

Next, add the flour, baking powder, vanilla extract and salt.

Lastly, the fun stuff – pour in the bottle of food colouring.

Now stir it all together and tip it into your pan.

Spread evenly and it’s ready to pop into the oven.

It should bake for about 40-45 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean or with a few crumbs. I folded down the edges of the tin foil halfway through so the edges didn’t get dark.

You can pull the brownies out of the pan with the tin foil and slide it out from underneath so they are resting on a plate. Let them cool while you start on the frosting.

For the frosting, I only made half of this batch and didn’t put in all of the powdered sugar, but it depends on how much frosting you like and how sweet you prefer it.

Ingredients: