chocolate lemon brownies

chocolate lemon brownies

• 21 Jun 2021

When Melbourne returned to lock down, people started to iso bake and photos of Julua Busuttil Nishimura's chocolate lemon brownies flooded instagram.

I needed to whip up something quickly for our work morning tea so I decided to make a batch of brownies. I really love my own brownie recipe so inspired by Julia's recipe I adapted my own slightly by topping the brownies with a layer of thinly sliced lemon and adding some dark chocolate pieces to the mix.

I was tired and misread the recipe and instead of using ½ cup of flour I only added ⅓ cup of flour. Due to the lack of flour, the brownies took a little longer to bake so the lemon slices were very well cooked by the time the base was ready but the brownies were definitely still squidgy.

The brownies were sinfully delicious and by lunch time, the tin was empty with nary a crumb left behind. 

Here's the proper recipe for you which makes a 17cm square pan of brownies. These are very rich so I sliced them into 12 bars. For all my recipes I use a 250ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60g eggs. My oven is a conventional gas oven so if your oven is fan forced you may need to reduce the oven temperature by 20°C.

Chocolate lemon brownies - makes 12 bars
Ingredients
150g dark chocolate, chopped
125g unsalted butter, chopped
1 tsp vanilla extract 
½ cup caster sugar
⅓ cup brown sugar
2 whole eggs
⅓ cup plain flour
1½ tbs cocoa powder
Pinch salt
65g dark chocolate, coarsely chopped
9 thin slices of lemon, seeds removed

Method
Preheat the oven to 180°C, conventional. Grease and line the base and sides of a 17cm square tin with baking paper. 

Place the chocolate, butter and vanilla in a small heatproof bowl. Melt in the microwave in 30 second bursts until the chocolate has melted. Set aside to cool to room temperature.

Stir in the sugars, then add the eggs to the chocolate mixture and beat until well combined. Sift together the flour, cocoa and salt then stir into the chocolate mixture and mix until the batter becomes very glossy. Stir through the chocolate pieces before scraping into the prepared pan then arrange the lemon slices over the top of the brownie mixture.

Bake the brownie for 35-40 minutes (I started testing at 25 minutes) or until the brownie has risen and come away slightly from edges of pan. When tested, it will still be moist in the centre. Cool on a rack before cutting into squares or bars.

Due to the lack of flour these brownies were extra squidgy and delicious, just what you want in a brownie. Next time I make chocolate lemon brownies, and there will be a next time, I'll read the recipe correctly and use the correct amount of flour. I think I'll peel the rind from the lemon before slicing it into rounds as once baked the skin became quite hard and instead add some grated rind to the brownie batter. Watch this space.

See you all again next week. 

Bye for now,

Jillian