Gooey Chocolate Raspberry Brownies

My sister came for a visit at the weekend and I wanted to bake something for us to munch on while we caught up on each others news. She is a huge chocoholic and the most rich, indulgent chocolate treat I could think of was chocolate brownies!

I couldn’t decide which brownie recipe to make and so ended up combining a mix of two different recipes. This worked, although I feel the brownies could still do with some tweaking. I used rice flour in place of the regular flour in order to make them gluten free. This worked, although the brownies ended up being very soft and gooey, more like a flourless chocolate cake, not that I’m complaining as it made them taste wonderfully indulgent! However, I think I’ll try using a combination of flours next time in the hope that they bake with a little more crumb texture.

I used a mix of melted dark chocolate and cocoa powder to ensure the brownies were extra chocolaty and also added some chopped white chocolate chunks too – as there is no such thing as ‘too much chocolate’ where my sister is concerned. I love having chunks or chips of things in my brownies, I like the different textures and flavours they add against the gooey deep dark chocolate.

To jazz the brownies up even further I also stirred in a few frozen raspberries as I love the combination of dark chocolate and fresh berries. I added them at the melted chocolate stage, but in future I think I’ll just fold them in at the end as they broke up rather a lot and I think it would be nice to have more obvious blobs of raspberry scattered throughout. I was quite amazing at how much fruity flavour they added to the brownies, it gave them a very sophisticated flavour.

We had some brownies left over and I thought they were actually better the following day, once they had mellowed and gone fudgier. I often enjoy brownies mixed through vanilla ice cream but it was so cold on Sunday that I ate one smothered in hot custard – mmmmm it was divine! It was all soft and gooey and the chocolate went all melty, you must try it!

Did you know that 10th - 16th October is also National Chocolate Week! The perfect reason to indulge

Gooey Chocolate Raspberry Brownies

Ingredients
150g butter
140g dark chocolate
180g caster sugar
2 eggs
20g cocoa powder
80g brown rice flour
60g fresh or frozen raspberries
50g white chocolate
¼ tsp gluten free baking powder

Method
Preheat the oven to 170C. Grease and line the base of an 8-9inch/20-22cm square tin and set to one side.
Break the dark chocolate into pieces and place into a large bowl along with the butter. Melt gently over a pan of simmering water until smooth. (The water should not touch the base of the bowl)
Remove the bowl from the heat and beat in the sugar. The mixture will be slightly grainy at this stage.
Beat the eggs in one at a time until thick and glossy.
Add the flour and baking powder and beat until no flour streaks remain.
Chop the white chocolate into small chunks and fold in the brownie batter along with the fresh or frozen raspberries.
Pour the batter into the tin and bake in the oven for 30 – 35 minutes until slightly risen and a skewer inserted in the middle comes out with sticky crumbs, rather than wet batter, sticking to it.
Allow to cool almost completely in the tin. The brownie will loose its puffed up look and become level.
Remove from the tin and cut into 12 squares.
Store in an airtight container lined with clingfilm for up to three days, or wrap individual squares freeze until required.
Note: My brownies were very soft, so you may want to bake them for a little longer if you prefer less gooey brownies.