Feast Day – Chocolate Cherry Brandy Brownies:
OK…a slightly decadent idea, but why not? After all, yesterday was a fasting day! And this month’s challenge for We Should Cocoa is CHERRIES. Now, I am not a great fan of glace cherries which are more often used in cakes. So I decided to try making some fresh cherry brownies.
Why? Well, honestly that’s what I felt like eating and in my book, there is no better reason. The cherries were lovely dark red British ones and if I was a proper food blogger I would have saved some and used them to make beautiful pictures. But, I am a bit useless and ate any spare ones before it got to photo tome!, so instead you will have to put up with my grandma’s favourite rosebud plate!
Without further ado here’s how to make them.
- 150 g Unsalted Butter
- 200 g 70% Chocolate
- 100 ml Brandy
- 100-125 g Fresh Cherries Washed, Stoned and Halved
- 250 g Caster Sugar
- 3 Eggs
- 100 g Plain Flour
- PinchSalt
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Pre heat the oven to 170c
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Melt the chocolate and butter together in a medium size glass bowl. You can either do this over a bain marie, or if you are lazy like me, zap in the microwave on 20 second bursts. Put to one side and allow to cool
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Grease and line an 8inch square cake tin
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Beat the caster sugar and salt into the chocolate and butter mixture till smooth. I used an electric hand whisk for this - you could do it by hand or in a stand mixer if you prefer
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Now beat in the eggs one by one
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Add the brandy and mix well
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Stir the sifted flour through and mix in half the cherries
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Pour the batter into the cake tin then dot the remaining cherries over the top
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Put in the pre-heated oven and cook for 30-40 minutes till the top is browned and starting to crack.
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Leave to cool in the tin before removing and cutting into squares
I really love these. It’s my second time making brownies – my first attempt was at making a cream cheese brownie based on a David Lebovitz recipe. I couldn’t find a recipe for brownies with cherries and brandy so I adapted another cream cheese brownie recipe from Eric Lanyard that was just a little simpler. I like fresh fruit with chocolate and I’m hoping these will freeze well. I discovered the cream cheese ones were lovely taken out of the freezer and zapped in the microwave for 30 seconds! And, I need to freeze them all before my next 5:2 fasting day because I am 100% sure they would blow any calorie counting!
I really must try these 🙂
Wow these looks so delicious. I am going to have to give baking these a shot! Although I am sure mine won’t look as good as yours!
Very tempting! 🙂
This makes me feel giddy!
These look and sound incredible! Cherries are my absolute favourite fruit and, like you, I’m not a fan of the glacé ones (bleargh!) The recipe seems pretty doable, too – may have to give it a whirl! Thanks for sharing 🙂
desperately want to attempt my first brownies as it combines some of my favorite things. but before i plunge in, did this recipe really require 10 hours of prep time?
lol well spotted, no 10 minutes!!!! off to change it now!!!
Oh Fiona, a baker we will make of you yet! These brownies look fabulous and I love the idea of adding fresh cherries rather than dried ones – yum yum. Get them in the freezer quick! Thanks for joining in with WSC.
somehow I knew you’d like these! what really suprised me was how much you could taste the brandy…though I’m guessing there’s no alcohol because of the cooking
Fantastic! You are becoming such an accomplished baker, you are not going to be able to say you ‘don’t do baking’ any more. Thank you for joining in with We should Cocoa this month 🙂
well, I think 2 x brownies, 1x cupcakes, 1 x parkin and 1 chocolate cake hardly counts as accomplished! But, these were fun to make…and I’m off to a baking masterclass this week!