Death by Chocolate!

I wish I could blame a major need for chocolate on being pregnant but anyone who knew me pre-pregnancy would know that to be a lie!! Sometimes though, for many a reason, a girl (or a guy) just needs some cocoa goodness so I decided to make this delicious gooey chocolate brownie cake. I never have much luck with brownies so had my fingers crossed for this to turn out better and it is lush!! The original recipe comes from Vegetarian Good Food Christmas and can be found online here:

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/2882/chocolate-brownie-cake-

or you can follow my step by step instructions and adaptions here:

Chocolate Brownie Cake

175g Stork,

200g castor sugar,

225g dark chocolate, broke into pieces (I used a mixture of dark chocolate bars broken up and milk chocolate chips),

3 medium eggs, separated,

65g plain flour,

50g pecans (I used walnuts as that's what was in my baking cupboard, other baker's suggest you could use fudge chunks, sultanas, other nuts, whatever you fancy really).

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/160C fan/gas mark 4.

2. Put the Stork, sugar and 175g of the chocolate into a heavy based saucepan and melt over a very low heat, stirring occasionally. Don't be tempted to turn the heat up and rush this. Leave to cool.

3. If you are using a stand mixer and only have one bowl I would whisk the egg whites next to save lots of washing up. Separate the eggs into whites and yolks and whisk the whites until they form soft peaks and set aside to use shortly.

4. Mix the egg yolks into the cooled chocolate mixture (do let it cool a bit so you don't end up with scrambled eggs!), then mix in the flour, nuts and the other 50g of chocolate.

5. Gently fold in the egg whites a bit at a time until you cannot see any white. You need to work gently and thoroughly (channel Mary Berry at this point) so that you don't knock all the air out of the egg whites but that you do mix them in properly. The egg whites will help the cake to rise.

6. Line a regular round cake tin with foil and gently spoon in all the mixture. Bake for 40 minutes then leave to cool until it is just warm. Turn it out the tin and enjoy.

I am going to be devouring a big piece of this cake tonight with a scoop of mint chocolate chip ice cream, but it would be just as nice with other flavours of ice cream, custard or cream, and I reckon it would be rather enjoyable just on it's own too.

Hope you enjoy this chocolate feast, if you have a fave chocolate recipe don't forget to share it on my Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/yummymummyletthemeatcake

Happy baking!

xxx