Friday, February 20, 2015

Double peanut brownies

My mother used to say that the definition of willpower was eating one salted peanut. She was wrong.

At least, she was right, but I've got an update. The definition of willpower is having a bag of salted peanuts in your house that you ARE NOT OPENING until you have tried them in a recipe you dreamed up during a particularly dull conference call.

Then, the definition of willpower is eating just one piece of the results. Reader, my willpower is lacking. Try these and let me know how you get on...

Double Peanut Brownie Bars Photo/Recipe: Lucy Corry/The Kitchenmaid

Double Peanut Brownies
In New Zealand, a peanut brownie is a crunchy cookie with peanuts inside it. Nice enough, but nothing to get excited about. By contrast, these are proper brownies, which is to say they are soft, slightly cakey and very moreish. They use two sorts of peanuts - ordinary blanched ones (which I can report are nowhere near as addictive as their roasted, salted cousins) - and the lovely, naughty salted ones. If you don't have the wherewithal to grind the peanuts, use ground almonds.

1 cup blanched, skinless peanuts
125g butter
3/4 cup brown sugar, loosely packed
5 Tbsp Dutch cocoa
2 free range eggs - fridge-cold is fine in this instance
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
3/4 cup roasted and salted peanuts

Heat the oven to 180C and line a small brownie tin (measuring about 25 x 20 or similar) with baking paper.
Grind the peanuts to a fine meal in a food processor - stop before they start turning into peanut butter!
Melt the butter over gentle heat, then add the sugar and cocoa. Stir over the heat for a minute, then remove and let cool for five minutes.
Add the eggs and beat well, then add the ground peanuts, salt and baking soda. Stir to mix, then tip in the roasted peanuts.
Pour the mixture into the prepared pan and bake for 20 minutes - it should be slightly wobbly in the middle. Let cool in the tin, then slice into bars. Store in an airtight container in a cool, dark place (hide them, they won't last long!).

Double Peanut Brownie Bars Photo/Recipe: Lucy Corry/The Kitchenmaid

After a bit of an absence, I'm joining in with my favourite blog challenge, We Should Cocoa. This month it's co-hosted by Katie at Recipe For Perfection - and the theme (you guessed it), is brownies..

Have a great weekend, everyone x


7 comments:

  1. Lucy, those look and sound really tempting. I'm sure I couldn't stop at one! And they are naturally gluten-free; more and more people I know are going gluten-free these days.

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  2. I don't claim to have any willpower but I think these sound very moreish - (and a food reason for the hospital to retest sylvia for peanut allergy - a mere 15 months after it was requested!)

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  3. These sound incredible - I love brownies but have never made any with peanuts in before. I love the fact that these have salted and plain peanuts in.

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  4. I love a brownie and I can't resist a peanut but I've never had them at the same time before. There's a first time for everything. Thank heavens for the joy of conference calls.

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  5. Never would have thought to use two different kinds of peanuts! What a great idea. Thanks for joining #WeShouldCocoa!

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  6. Oh, oh, oh, you clever girl Lucy. I just LOVE the idea of making the brownies with ground peanuts instead of flour. This is why I love food bloggers so much, they are always coming up with ingenious ideas. I didn't manage to stop at only one of my brownies and strongly suspect I wouldn't with yours either. Glad to see you back on board and thanks for joining in.

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Hello - thanks for stopping by. If this was real life I'd make you a cup of tea and open the biscuit tin, but in lieu of those things, let's have a chat anyway...