Choc Berry Brownies

We're about to move house. We are having our first baby in May (woah!) and we need somewhere more baby appropriate - no steps, a dishwasher, a more accessible outdoor area etc. We found a new place much quicker than anticipated, which is great but I am definitely going to miss our current place. This has been our first flat together and we've been here for over a year, so it's home. I am sure our next place will be even better, but I'm sentimental. I have really enjoyed cooking in the lovely, sunny kitchen, so I thought it was fitting on our final Sunday here to spend some time doing one of my favourite things. I'm also trying to use up all the leftover bits and bobs we have in the fridge and freezer to make the move that little bit easier. Hence my choice for today - Choc Berry Brownies.

A friend gifted me some lovely 72% Lindt dark chocolate from a recent trip to Europe and whilst I love dark chocolate, I found this a little too intense for just eating so what better opportunity than to use it for a brownie. I also have a lot of frozen berries that I haven't been eating because of the hepatitis A berry recall, even though the brand I have hasn't been affected I avoided them just in case. But cooking the shit out of them should kill any bugs, so it's a good way to use them up.

This recipe is a 'healthy' one from the Healthy Food website. It's a little bit better for you as some of the sugar has been replaced with banana and some of the chocolate with cocoa powder - although I didn't have quite enough cocoa so used more chocolate after all. It uses low-fat spread instead of butter and trim milk, but you could just as easily use butter and whole milk if you prefer - it would make it a bit more like a traditional brownie, this one has more of a cake texture.

Oil

80g reduced-fat spread, melted

1/2 cup packed soft brown sugar

2 eggs

1/2 cup trim milk - I used whole milk.

1 ripe banana, mashed

1/3 cup cocoa powder - I didn't have quite enough so added extra chocolate and a little extra flour.

3/4 cup flour

1/2 cup self-raising flour

50g dark chocolate, chopped - I used about 75g

150g frozen mixed berries

2 teaspoons of icing sugar or icing sugar/cocoa mix to dust.

Preheat over to 180 degrees celsius. Grease a 20cm, square cake tin with a little oil and line with baking paper. Beat spread and sugar with a wooden spoon. Add eggs and beat to combine. Fold milk, banana, cocoa and flours into the mixture until just combined. Fold chocolate and berries into the brownie mixture. Spoon the mixture into the tin and bake for 20-25 minutes or until firm to the touch. Leave cooked mixture to stand in the tin for 10 minutes before removing and slicing into squares. Dust with icing sugar or a mix of icing sugar and cocoa.

I used a slightly smaller, round cake tin which meant my mixture was higher in the tin than it would've been in a larger, square tin. I found I had to cook it for about 40 minutes for it to be cooked through. It definitely needed all the cocoa, despite my extra added chocolate, so it wasn't quite as dark or rich as I would've liked. It was nice and soft and moist though and the banana helped with both this and the sweetness. Perhaps not a legit brownie, but yummy all the same.

Banana Bread

Oh haaaaaay! It's been a month since I last posted but I've had a some other exciting-and-kind-of important-sort-of life-changing stuff occupying my time of late. And I've actually just been pretty busy with quite a few weekends away from home, but I have still managed to squeeze in some cooking here and there.

I was working from home the day I made this, which meant when I finished up for the day I had some time to put a banana bread in the oven. There were a couple of dire-looking bananas in the fruit bowl, which normally I chuck straight in the freezer for future use in cakes or smoothies, but I was inspired to whip something up then and there. I looked for a 'healthy' recipe for banana bread, something without as much sugar and fat and found one on BBC Good Food. I didn't quite have the right amounts of everything so I adapted it a bit to suit, and added some extras.

140g flour - wholemeal would make this even healthier, but I didn't have any.

100g self-raising flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

pinch of salt

1/4 teaspoon mixed spice

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

2-3 ripe bananas, mashed - I think 3 is best, but I only had 2.

4 tablespoons of agave syrup - I only had honey, so I mixed about 3 tablespoons of clover honey with a little hot water, to make it more like a syrup. I used a little less as I didn't want it to be too sweet.

3 large eggs, lightly beaten

150ml of low-fat, plain yoghurt - I didn't quite have 150ml so about 50ml was some mixed berry yoghurt I also had in the fridge.

chopped pecans or walnuts (optional - and I didn't opt for these).

Pre-heat oven to 160 degrees celsius, fan bake. Put all the dry ingredients in a large bowl and line a loaf tin with baking paper - make sure you leave it coming up over the sides a bit. In a second bowl, combine the mashed bananas, agave syrup/honey, beaten eggs and yoghurt. Add to the dry ingredients and mix until just combined. Pour into the tin and sprinkle the nuts on top, if you're using them. Bake for 1 hour 10-15 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean - mine was done in just over an hour though so keep an eye on it. Cool on a wire rack and eat warm, or like the Aussies do, slice it, toast it and spread it with butter, cream cheese or even lemon curd at breakfast time. Store in an airtight container and it should last at least a few days, longer if you're toasting it.

I was a bit over the usual for breakfast and this was a bit of at treat for the rest of the week but it didn't taste overly sweet and a couple of slices with butter were surprisingly filling. It wasn't quite as banana-ry as I would've liked, so I'd use 3 bananas next time. I've recently bought an Easiyo yoghurt maker too, which is great as I use a lot of natural yoghurt, both in cooking, smoothies and just to eat, so it's nice to be able to make your own. It's also great served with any sort of sweet cake instead of cream, to take the edge off the sweetness a wee bit. Enjoy!