Last Sunday the 18th of May was World Baking Day, and I was invited by Stork to pledge to bake for someone special. About a week later two friendly chefs arrived at my door bearing a hamper filled with all the ingredients I would need to make a batch of delicious chocolate brownies to mark the day. I thought this was a fantastic idea and was more than happy to get involved (although it doesn't take much to convince me to bake!).
Various other bloggers also got involved and I have read some lovely posts about how they baked for their colleagues, friends and mums, amongst others. In the end, I decided that I wanted to show my appreciation for an incredibly special person in my life - my amazing husband. There were a couple of reasons for my decision: the first (and most obvious) being that he is... like I said ...amazing, and actually deserved a medal for "support of a stressed out wife" last week! It was also his birthday over the weekend - perfect timing. Not only that, but I have been baking a lot of brownies lately for work purposes, and it seemed only fair to make him batch that he was allowed to eat - poor guy.
My thanks go to Stork for including me in the campaign! Below is the recipe that I received with my hamper. I decided to add something extra, and included dried cranberries in the final recipe. If you don't happen to have these on hand you can leave them out. And don't forget the most important ingredient of all.... love. x
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CHOCOLATE, WALNUT & CRANBERRY BROWNIES
Makes 16 brownies
135g Stork margarine
140g milk chocolate, broken into pieces
3 medium eggs
225g white sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
40g cake flour
1 tsp baking powder
25g cocoa powder
pinch of salt
55g finely chopped walnuts
30g dried cranberries
Step 1.) Preheat your oven to 160°C and line a 23cm square cake tin. Step 2.) Place the margarine and chocolate in a saucepan over a very low heat, and stir until they have melted and you have a smooth mixture. Set aside to cool. Step 3.) Place the eggs, sugar and vanilla in a separate bowl, and whisk until pale and thick. Whisk in the cooled chocolate mixture. Step 4.) Sift the flour, baking powder, cocoa and salt into the bowl. Fold into the mixture by hand. Lastly, fold in the walnuts and cranberries. Step 5.) Pour the batter into the cake tin, and bake for 40-50 minutes until set but still a little wobbly. Allow to cool before cutting into squares.
