This recipe comes from a new (to me) cookbook, Maggie’s Kitchen, by celebrated Australian cook Maggie Beer. This is a truly beautiful book, every picture had me gasping and bookmarking it to make later.
I made this for dessert at friend’s place – generally if you invite me over for dinner you can count on me to make dessert. It’s all a clever ploy to feed my raging sweet tooth. This recipe makes exceptionally rich (and sweet!) brownies, so I recommend serving with a scoop of icecream, just to soften that richness a little.
Details
- Prep Time:
20 min - Cook Time:
45 min - Ready Time:
1 h, 5 min
Ingredients
- 300 grams Dark chocolate (70%)
- 250 grams Butter, chopped
- 4 Eggs
- 2 Egg yolks
- 200 grams Brown sugar
- 60 grams Plain flour
- 40 grams Cocoa powder
- 2 cups Dried pears, chopped. Soak in water first if dry.
Directions
- Preheat a fan-forced oven to 180* (I preheated my conventional oven to nearly 200*).
- Place a heat-proof bowl containing the chopped dark chocolate and butter over a saucepan of simmering water. Be careful that the boiling water does not touch the bottom of the bowl, or else the chocolate will burn. Melt, stirring occasionally to ensure the chocolate and butter melt together. Put to one side to cool slightly.
- In another bowl, beat together the eggs, egg yolks and sugar with an electric mixture. It should end up thick and pale. Maggie suggests that when you run a spatula through the mixture a trail will remain.
- Stir in the cooled chocolate mixture, then fold in the sifted flour and cocoa, followed by the pears.
- Grease a large baking tin (I used a 20cm square cake tin), then pour in the mixture.
- Bake for 30 minutes, then reduce the heat by 20* (So I reduced in to 180*) and cook for another 15 to 20 minutes, depending on how fudgy you like your brownies.
- You'll be able to tell it's cooked if it cracks a little at the edges, the centre is springy and a skewer comes out only slightly sticky.
- I served our brownie with vanilla ice cream on the side.
30.03.10 | 
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I didn’t think they were overly sweet or rich – you know how I feel about desserts that are too sweet, and I quite liked this one. It was well balanced. I especially enjoyed the fact that it was still a little warm when we had it.
Totally agree on the serving size, though I would go as far as spreading it to 16 people (i.e. half serves, unless you already reduced the qty’s in the recipe?).
You’re right, I’ll change the servings to 16 – based on everything I’ve made from her book so far, the serving sizes are very large!