Brownies

Ingredients

serves 4, preparation 35 mins

•    200g chocolate with a high cocoa content (70% or more)
•    125g unsalted butter 
•    150g caster sugar 
•    26g vanilla sugar 
•    1 tsp ground cinnamon 
•    pinch of salt
•    50g Dutch cocoa powder 
•    4 eggs 

Recipe

1. Put all sugar, chocolate and butter into a saucepan. Prepare a double boiler: Pour water into a larger saucepan, put on the stove, bring the water to boil and then sink the saucepan with the ingredients half-way into the water. 
2. The water doesn't need to be boiling all the time, it's enough if it’s simmering. Thanks to the double boiler, the ingredients in the smaller saucepan don't stick to the bottom and don’t burn. It only takes about 5 minutes for them to melt.
3. Once the chocolate and butter are completely melted, take the saucepan off the stove, add the cinnamon, salt, cocoa and eggs. Whisk until fully combined.
4. Line your cake pan (24cm in diameter) with baking parchment and pour the mixture into the pan. 
5. Preheat the oven to 180 °C. Bake for 10 minutes, check on the cake, reduce the temperature to 165 °C and bake for another 10-13 minutes. Make sure not to overbake the brownies. Since every oven bakes differently, it’s worth checking on your brownies regularly.
6. Baking is the most important part. Don't worry about the crust going upwards while baking, it's completely natural – it will go down once the cake has cooled.
7. Once baked, leave the brownies to cool properly, then cut to pieces. Inside, the brownies should be a bit gooey. 

Tomáš David, chef of the cold kitchen, Fresh & Tasty