After Eight Brownies
Rich, fudgy, deliciously dense chocolate After Eight Brownies hiding a secret layer of mint thins throughout.
Servings: 12 brownies
Calories:
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Alter quantities (metric only) 12 brownies
Here's what you'll need...
- Heatproof bowl that will rest safely on the saucepan
- Large saucepan
Ingredients you'll need...
- 250 g Unsalted butter chopped into chunks (US = 1 Cup and 1 tablespoon)
- 225 g Dark chocolate minimum 70% cocoa solids chopped into small chunks
- 300 g Golden caster sugar (US = superfine sugar = 1 Cup and 9 tablespoons)
- 75 g Plain flour (US =all-purpose flour)
- 50 g Cocoa powder (US = ½ Cup)
- 1 teaspoon Baking powder
- 4 Large eggs (US = extra large)
- 1 300 g Box of After Eights
Here's what we do...
- Heat your oven to 160°C Fan/180°C/355°F/Gas Mark 4.
- Grease your baking tin and then cover with greaseproof paper. To do this cut a piece of paper that will cover the long sides and base of the tin. You want to ensure the paper overhangs the edges of the tin so that you can hold it to remove your brownies when cooled. The shorter sides will be fine if just greased as long as your tin is in a good condition.
- Add boiling water to your saucepan, it needs to be about a third full. Keep to a gentle simmer on a low setting and place your heatproof bowl on top. Be careful, it will be hot!. The base of the bowl should not touch the water. This is known as a Bain-Marie.
- Add your butter to your heatproof bowl and gently melt.
- Mix in 200 grams of your chopped dark chocolate and stir until melted.
- Carefully remove your heatproof bowl and pour the mixture into your large bowl, then mix in your caster sugar.
- Leave to cool until at room temperature.
- Sift your flour, cocoa and baking powder together and then fold into your cooled chocolate mixture. Folding means turning the mixture over onto itself, rather than mixing in circles, this retains air which would be lost if mixing.
- Beat your eggs and then fold them into your brownie batter.
- Add half of your brownie batter to your prepared tin.
- Place over a layer of After Eights.
- Cover with the rest of the brownie batter.
- Finally, add another 6 or so After Eights to the top of the batter and dot over the remaining 25 grams of chopped chocolate. Don't press the chocolate into the mixture, just leave on the top to melt as it bakes.
- Place in the centre of your oven and bake for 30-35 minutes.
- Your After Eight brownies are ready when there is a slight wobble in the centre. A skewer inserted into the centre should not come out clean, like with cake and it should also not come out with lots of wet mixture stuck to it either. The skewer should just have a few cakey fudgy bits on it, ie something in between!
- Leave to cool completely in your brownie tin, then cut up into squares.
Supporting Notes
- To ensure your brownies are fudgy and not cakey keep your mixing to a minimum so that you do not incorporate extra air. Your batter should be silky in texture when ready
- Ensure you cool your brownies at room temperature, don't be tempted to refrigerate to speed up the process because they won't set properly inside if cooled too quickly. Also, don't try to cut them up before totally cool.
- Brownies like to be baked at just the right temperature for just the right amount of time. Overbake just by minutes and they are cakey, under bake and they can be raw in the middle.
- To know when they are baked, give the tin a gentle shake and look for a bit of a wobble, just in the very middle but not a huge jelly-like wobble.
- Another test is to insert a skewer or cocktail stick into the centre of your After Eight Brownies and continue baking if it comes out coated in uncooked batter. If just coated in a few cakes, fudgy bits then your brownies are done.