Birthday Boy Brownies

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My Big Boy was 5 yesterday.

We are having his party on Sunday and he has put in a request for a Caterpillar cake.  But knowing his love of cake, and chocolate, I thought I'd make him some Chocolate Brownie cupcakes for his birthday tea.

When I began googling a recipe I discovered Annie from the working mum's cookbook had done all the internet legwork for me.  So I took her recipe for Chocolate Brownie Cupcakes.  The only tweeks I made were to add 100g chopped walnuts to the mix instead of the chopped chocolate towards the end.  I did also find these were no longer moist in the middle after 20 minutes in the oven, and would lessen the cooking time next time.  Maybe even 10-15 minutes?
 
Makes about 10

100g dark chocolate (I used Bournville)
100g (slightly salted) butter
2 medium free range eggs
75g caster sugar
50g light brown muscovado sugar
120g plain flour
20g cocoa
1 teasp baking powder
A few drops of vanilla essence
100g chocolate – a mixture of white and milk chocolate – to make chocolate chips

1. Melt butter and dark chocolate together in a metal bowl over a pan of boiling water, making sure the water doesn’t touch the bottom of the bowl. When melted let it cool for a few minutes. Pour into a mixing bowl.
2. Break the eggs into a bowl with both the sugars and whisk until the mixture has gone significantly paler in colour, is frothy and a little thickened – one of the other recipes suggested this may take 3 – 8 minutes. If you have a mixer or food processor with a whisk attachment and can leave them beating whilst you get on with other things, that’s ideal.
3. Measure out the flour, cocoa and baking powder and place in a sieve.
4. Pour the egg/sugar mixture into the mixing bowl with the chocolate mixture. There should be quite a lot of air in the egg mixture which you don’t really want to lose, so fold the mixtures gently into each other.
5. Put the dry ingredients into a sieve and sift about a third into the bowl until there is an even layer over the top of the chocolate mixture. Fold this in gently. Repeat sifting and folding until all the ingredients are mixed in evenly.
6. Chop the white and milk chocolate into small chips using a sharp knife and add ⅔rds to the brownie mixture, saving the remainder for later.
7. Line a cupcake tin with cases and fill each about ⅔rds full.
8. Bake the cupcakes at 180°C for 20 minutes. About half way through open the oven door and scatter the remaining chocolate chips over the top of the cakes before returning to the oven to finish cooking.
9. Take them out at 20 minutes when they should have a shiny cracked crust and not wobble when you shake the tray gently. If they do put them back for another couple of minutes cooking. You can’t test whether they are done or not as you do with cakes with a cocktail stick inserted into cake coming out clean – the brownie mixture will stick to it.
10. Transfer them to a wire rack to cool straight away – gently as they’re still a little fragile. This will ensure that they keep the goo-ey centre. Alternatively if you prefer the more cake-like variety, leave them in the cupcake tin for 10 minutes or so before transferring out to cool.
11. Eat them when warm with ice-cream, or they are possibly even nicer the following day when they’ve cooled.

Recipe by Annie at 'a working mum's cookbook'