Dessert Day - the "what the eff, Jamie Oliver?" edition

Over the past couple of years, it's become a little bit of a tradition that Deidre and I get together, possibly bake something, meet up with Inspector Climate, go to a 6pm-ish movie, and are all back at our respective homes by like 9.30pm. Which is FABULOUS, because it means you're busy on New Year's Eve, but don't have to spend a million years at a party socialising with people you're not particularly interested in socialising with. You can go to bed at 10pm if you want, or you can ring in the new year sitting on the sofa in your PJs and watching Jurassic Park for the five hundredth time. In short, it's the best New Year's Eve of ever.

Anyway.

We decided to do Dessert Day pretty much at the last minute and so had almost zero ideas of what we wanted to make. Eventually, I remembered the salted caramel brownies that I'd had in London and decided that sounded like just the thing. So I trawled the internet for recipes and came up with this one from Jamie Oliver.

And let me tell you, there were a few things that made almost zero sense to us.
1. Crinkling up the baking paper and wetting it. Pretty sure it made no difference whatsoever...
2. The whole not stirring thing. Golden syrup is really thick and it's pretty hard to swirl it.
3. The size of the baking tins involved. They both seemed much larger than was entirely necessary.

Pre-baking

Post-baking. Definitely didn't look like the picture...

On the plus side, they were delicious

 In between baking, we watched Pitch Perfect and ate far too much roast pumpkin dip and fancy cheese (using the cheese cleaver, obviously. It's not Dessert Day without the cheese cleaver).

And while the brownies were delicious, there were a few things that we decided we'd do differently in the future:
1. Make more salted caramel. This quantity seemed insufficient.
2. Use a smaller pan so that it's easier to hide the chunks of caramel in the brownie.
3. Freeze half the caramel, cut it into chunks, and bury the chunks in the brownie. Much easier than dealing with sticky spoonfuls.
4. Pour some of the caramel over the top AFTER they've been baked so that it doesn't all get absorbed into the surface of the brownie.

Still, they were delicious whether warm or cold, and the combination of salted caramel and suuuuper dark chocolate was fairly phenomenal. So on the whole, I'd call them a win. Just not as much of a win as they could have been with a few alterations.

And then we went to see The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies. I'd recommend the brownies way before I recommended the movie. It was...not great. But, you know, there was a battle pig, so that's something!

Have you made salted caramel brownies? Which recipe did you use? And did it involve scrunching up and wetting the baking paper?? Because that still seems weird...

K xx

London Bridge Is(n't) Falling Down

Previously: I went on a walking tour of London and saw some weird art at the National Portrait Gallery.

My second day in London commenced at 4.25am when my brain decided that four hours of sleep was more than enough. At 5.30am, I gave up on trying to sleep and started reading. At 5.40am, I got hungry but the kitchen was down four flights of stairs, so I ate a packet of gummi fruit salad and got sugar all over the bedclothes (whoops). At 6am, I tried to sleep again and failed monumentally. At 7.30am, I started to play a fun game called "At what time will my brother and all his housemates be gone so that I can wander around in my pyjamas like a zombie?".

I eventually dragged myself out of bed at about 8.30am, and did all kinds of fun things like adding huge wings to my eyeliner and twelve layers of mascara to make myself feel more awake. I also phoned the hotel where my parents were to stay that night (they were due to arrive in London at 5.30am, but their plane was delayed by fourteen hours) to say that they'd be late, and the guy on reception could not have been less interested if I'd tried to explain the Australian taxation system to him.

I finally left the house at about 11am and headed in the general direction of my brother's office, as we were meeting for lunch. I got there horribly early, so wandered across London Bridge to see this through the haze:

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I wandered a little further, and stumbled across The Monument to the Great Fire of London, which was rather unexpected, then headed back across London Bridge to meet C at Borough Market. After perusing all the lunch options on offer, I settled for fresh spinach and ricotta ravioli with napoli sauce, and we sat in the grounds of Southwark Cathedral to eat. Because, you know, it's totally no big deal eating lunch in the grounds of a church that's been around four times longer than your country!

After we'd finished our pasta, I decided that seeing as how brownies are kind of my thing and C had been rambling since I arrived about how good the brownies were at this one store next to the market that I should check it out. Which is how I came to order a salted caramel and vanilla fudge brownie ("The Fudgepacker Brownie", which made C laugh hysterically) from Konditor and Cook. And holy Jeebus, it was amazing. Ugly, especially after being squashed in a paper bag, but utterly delicious:

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After lunch, I'd been planning on going down to Greenwich but I decided that Greenwich probably warranted more time than I had left that day, so instead I walked back across London Bridge and down the river to the Tower of London. I thought that it would be a pretty quick visit, given that I'd been there several times as a kid. But I ended up spending all afternoon there. The World War I memorial installation is absolutely breathtaking, especially when you consider that what's currently in place is only about half the poppies that will ultimately be installed. Every night at sunset, a bugler (not a burglar) plays The Last Post, and approximately one hundred names are read out. I didn't get a chance to see it, but I imagine it's pretty special. The poppies alone are staggering.

I arrived with a little time to spare before the next guided tour, which meant I was lucky enough to see an American woman looking at the "Next tour leaves at" clock, and asking the other members of her party if time worked the same way in the UK as it does in America, a question I'm still giving a confused dog head tilt about. Luckily, the other members of her group seemed equally confused (I wonder if it's the fact that it was an analogue clock and she was used to digital??) and quickly explained to her that yes, clocks work the same way in England.

The tour was interesting, although sadly we didn't get to go into the chapel, which was closed for repairs that day. But I *did* get to see a teenage girl being made to delete the photos she took of the Crown Jewels from her phone, so that was fun.

I took a much needed hot chocolate break in the cafe, and seriously considered taking a nap on the table because I'd hit a fairly dramatic patch of oh-God-I-woke-up-at-4am-and-need-to-sleep-immediately. Luckily, it wore off after a while and I was able to drag myself up again and head into the exhibits in the White Tower. And I'm glad I did, because they were pretty damned fabulous. There was the stuff I remembered - namely, the armour of various kings throughout history - but there was also some fascinating newer stuff about the Tower's role as a mint, as a centre for training soldiers over the centuries, and as an armoury. It included this rather spectacular dragon made out of all sorts of weapons from a bunch of different time periods:

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I left the White Tower just in time to see Tower Bridge being opened to let a ship pass through, which was excellent timing because apparently that now only happens once or twice a week. Well done, Kirsti. Good job.

By the time I'd finished at the Tower, it was 5pm, so I texted C to ask when he was going to be done with work. He said he'd be another half hour or so, so I decided that I'd walk back to his office across Tower Bridge and down the other side of the river. If I'd had more time, I would have gone to the Tower Bridge Museum, but unfortunately there was only time to walk across the bridge, stopping for a couple of photos along the way, because obviously:

Zombie Kirsti is a zombie. And may also be sunburnt.

I made it to C's office at about 5.35pm, and of course he didn't turn up for another 25 minutes. Until I sent him a text message that said "Come the fuck on, Bridget!" (because obviously), after which he decided to grace me with his presence. We headed back to his place, grabbed all of my stuff, and headed back to the station, stopping off at Chipotle to shove burritos in our faces (obviously I texted Gina to tell her all the ways in which it wasn't *quite* right). Then we headed to Earl's Court to meet the parentals.

Except that we needn't have eaten quite so fast, because they got there approximately forty five minutes later than we'd anticipated. Womp womp. Still, once they arrived we made it to the Hotel-of-the-Disinterested-Reception-Staff with no problems, dumped all the luggage, and headed out to the pub for a much needed drink. Then C headed for home because he had to work and was catching a much later flight the following day, and I got to spend the night on a surprisingly comfortable camp stretcher.

Next up, I continue to try and fit more than one day into a post (and I will probably continue to fail), but more importantly, we head to Portugal!

K xx

New Zealand - the "LOOK AT THE PRETTY!" edition

Previously, Ness and I drove a really long way and it wasn't particularly exciting.

After our night in Otorohanga, we packed up and headed the not-very-far-down-the-road to Waitomo. Once there, we bought tickets to tour all three caves, because GO BIG OR GO HOME, YO. We had about 45 minutes to kill before our tour of Aranui Cave, so we decided to embrace the hobbit lifestyle and have second breakfast. Well. Ness had something resembling breakfast. I had a triple chocolate brownie. And while we ate, we eavesdropped on a conversation being had about Australia by some very loud Americans.

And lucky for you, I recorded the basic details of it in a memo on my phone, so I can tell you about it.

Know-It-All American: "In Australia, they have to take food everywhere on these massive trucks."
Friend: "Oh, really?"
KIAA: "Yeah, they're called roadtrains. And once they start driving, they're impossible to stop."
Me: "..................................."
Friend: "Whoa."
KIAA: "Yup. They drive from Perth to Sydney without stopping at all!"
Me: *busts an organ trying not to laugh*

Right. The roadtrains drive 4,000km without stopping at all. And when they reach Sydney, the only thing that stops them is that they drive into the ocean and that floods the engine and shuts it off...

KIAA: "The city centre in Melbourne is really small. And they call it the CBD - centralised business dominion."
Me: *mutters* "DISTRICT. Central business DISTRICT."
KIAA: "You can walk around the Melbourne CBD in like half an hour."
Friend: "Oh, wow. That IS small."
KIAA: "But to walk around Sydney's would take you ALL DAY."
Me: *mutters* a) You're really wrong on both lengths of time, b) Melbourne's CBD consists of more than just the grid, you abominable twat."

There was also something about the construction of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, apparently, but I can't remember what it was, unfortunately.

Of course, these delightful individuals turned out to be on our tour. And the friend turned out to be wearing sparkly platform flip flops while carrying her nine month old baby. The tour specifically said to wear sturdy shoes with good grip as the cave is often slippery. Luckily for everyone, the baby and its mother made it out in one piece.

Anyway, Aranui Cave was pretty if not especially big (well, the parts you could walk through, anyway):

From there, we moved on to the Glowworm Cave, where you can't take pictures. And let me tell you, it. was. AMAZING. Technically, they're less glowworms and more maggot-y things, but PFFF. They're still super pretty. You walk through the cave looking at a couple of basic formations, and then they load you into boats to go through the glowworm part. I'm pretty sure I spent the entire boat ride with a massive grin on my face because it was so incredible.

(If you want to know more about the glowworms, you can go watch this SciShow video from Hank Green)

After a quick spot of lunch (under no circumstances did I have chips and garlic mayo for lunch NOPE DIDN'T DO THAT), we headed out on our tour of Ruakuri Cave, which was kind of awesome because we got to see some glowworms up locse, and also because we got to see some people doing the high ropes course through the cave, which looks INSANE. Plus, parts of the cave were really pretty:

Aaaaaand I think that's quite enough for one post, so I'll split Waitomo into two parts. Next up, we investigate a waterfall, have a delicious dinner, hang out with some more glowworms, and come across something unexpected.

K xx

Two wins and an epic fail

So yesterday was Dessert Day. And it was a very exciting Dessert Day because we were FINALLY going to follow through on making a recipe that I'd suggested to Deidre approximately forever ago (date may involve hyperbole). We had a special guest star yesterday in the form of my IRL BFF, Char. This had the added bonus of meaning that Deidre and I didn't have to go near eggs, which was VERY exciting because y'all know how we feel about raw eggs (icky and gross, in case you don't)!!

We had three recipes to make yesterday, but as you can probably tell from the title, not everything went according to plan...

We started out making gluten free goldfish crackers, except not goldfish shaped because a) none of us own a goldfish shaped cookie cutter, and b) ain't nobody got time to draw faces and eyes on five million crackers. (Word to the wise: we had to add a couple of extra spoonfuls of rice flour to make it form a proper dough. And we left out the xanthan gum because we like to live dangerously)

When we'd made the dough, we all looked at it and went "Pffff, that's going to make about five crackers!". And then we spent the next HOUR rolling out the dough and cutting out goldfish starfish and heartfish and birdfish and star-of-David-fish (because those are the cookie cutters I have that were a suitable size). So yeah. It makes about a millionty. And then we ate about half of them for lunch, because they were completely and utterly delicious. Here's a terrible photo of the ones we didn't shove in our faces immediately:

Next up, we decided to attempt making gluten free crumpets. This was partly because I've always wanted to make my own crumpets and the recipe in the Australian Women's Weekly Cooking Class Cookbook (published sometime in the 1970s, based on the recipes it includes) looked pretty easy, and partly because Deidre has NEVER HAD A CRUMPET. This made me sad for her, and I felt the need to rectify this.

So we made up the batter, and greased a million bunch of egg rings, and everything seemed to be going according to plan:

Yes, the one in the middle on the right is Australia shaped.
And upside down. What of it? 

Except that when it came to the end of the ten minutes recommended cooking time, the tops were still raw, no holes had formed, and the bottoms looked rather like they'd already been in the toaster. So we made an executive decision, and flipped them over, even though the recipe didn't call for it. While Deidre and I peered despairingly into the frying pan, Char set to work Googling other crumpet recipes to see if she could find out where we went wrong.

Conclusions?
- Gluten is important.
- They need time to rest after you make the batter, even though the AWW didn't say to.
- Substituting gluten free flour doesn't really work.

Once both sides were cooked, we looked at them and decided that they were more English muffin-esque than crumpet-like. Plus, they were too fat to fit in the toaster. So we sliced them in half and put them under the grill in the oven. Result?

You may think they look tasty and vaguely crumpet-like. You would be wrong. They were stodgy and crunchy at the same time, while also having a hideous yeast-y and chemical-y aftertaste that none of us could describe. No one finished their "crumpet" half, and the rest of the cooked ones, along with the rest of the batter, went straight in the rubbish bin. Which was incredibly sad, but better than actually devoting time to cooking them, let alone eating them. Although honestly, considering we've now had eight Dessert Days (nine, including our Super Sized Dessert Day at Ganache Chocolate), I'm a little impressed that it's taken us this long to end up with a recipe that didn't work...

Our final dish of the day was quite possibly my favourite thing to come out of Dessert Day thus far: peppermint pattie brownies. We made a few minor changes to the recipe - namely, gluten free flour, caster sugar instead of white, and adding a few drops of green food colouring to the peppermint layer because Australian butter is BUTTER COLOURED AND NOT WHITE LIKE AMERICAN BUTTER, and the idea of a yellow-y mint flavoured layer gave me the wiggins.

ANYWAY. Minor recipe changes and a small disaster involving trying to make ganache from 70% cocoa dark chocolate later, the overall result = amazingness to the point where I'm going to be making them again tomorrow because I have the rest of a tin of evaporated milk in the fridge and this is the only recipe I have that calls for it, and any excuse to make peppermint pattie brownies is a valid one. Yes? Yes.

Enough words. Here, have some pictures to drool over:

Yes, Char's about to stab the brownies

Happy Friday, kids.

K xx

Dessert Day: World Nutella Day edition

Yes, it's that time of year again - the time when it's okay to consume half a jar of Nutella in one sitting!!

Source

First of all, I'm going to address the Americans among us. Y'all need to work on your pronunciation of Nutella. It's made of hazelnuts. HazelNUTS, see? Therefore, it's Nut-ella. Not Noo-tella. Nut-ella. Got it?

MOVING RIGHT ALONG.

My partner-in-crime for all things Dessert Day, Deidre, emailed me a list of about ten recipes while I was still in the US. Yesterday morning, we were standing in the aisles at my local supermarket trying to work out a) which recipes to make, and b) what ingredients said recipes would require. It probably didn't help that I was running a 38.7 (102) degree temperature, and was therefore even more vague and useless than usual!

Anyway, we settled on making Nutella brownies, and Nutella filled doughnuts. We had absolutely no idea how either of them were going to turn out gluten free, but what is Dessert Day if not an opportunity to potentially fail in a spectacular fashion?!

We started out by making the doughnuts, which required rising time. I say WE, but I really mean "I measured stuff out, and Deidre did all the heavy lifting to keep my germs as far away from the hands on parts as possible". We were both a little apprehensive about the whole doughnut thing, because a) gluten free yeast containing dough, and b) DEEP FRYING OH GOD. So we were pleasantly surprised when the dough came together beautifully:

Once the dough was done, we made it go and sit by itself outside on the basis that it was warm outside and surely it would rise nicely there. Instead, I think it mostly just made friends with a wasp... (To clarify - the bowl was Glad Wrapped. The wasp was on top of the Glad Wrap)

While the dough was busy making new friends, we got started on the Nutella brownies. Has anyone ever come across a recipe that calls for 1 1/4 cups of cocoa? NEITHER HAD WE. We left out the espresso powder, and used about 50g less chocolate chips than the recipe called for, because we were a little afraid of how chocolate-y they already were.

We also overcooked them a little. But when we first took them out of the oven, they wobbled very much like this:

I was going to say "But with less velociraptors...", but Clever Girl was helping out yesterday! (If you have no idea who Clever Girl is, you should probably go and watch yesterday's vlog. Hell, just go watch yesterday's vlog full stop because it's awesome)

Anyway, so the brownies were super wobbly, and we put them back in the oven for another ten minutes. Which was probably sliiiiiiiiiightly too long. Sigh. It probably didn't help that we were watching Pride and Prejudice while they were in the oven, and got a little distracted by Colin Firth...

Anyway, they're pretty delicious. But the amount of cocoa in them meant that you could barely taste either the chocolate chips OR the Nutella. Which seemed, to me at least, rather against the point of putting them in there. I'd have preferred more Nutella and less cocoa, I think...

From there, we made the dough say goodbye to its friend the wasp (which was rather more difficult than anticipated - the wasp did NOT want to go), and took it back inside to start the deep frying process. Which led to many questions:
- "How big a saucepan do you need to deep fry stuff?"
- "How many do you think we can cook at a time?"
- "How do you know when the oil's at the right temperature?"
- "Where the hell have I put that stupid thermometer??"
- "How many does this make, anyway?"

The answers, in order, are: Not very, 4 or 5, if you dip a wooden skewer in the oil and it makes lots of bubbles it's good to go, I still don't know, and about 45.

While I took care of the deep frying, Deidre was in charge of filling them with Nutella. In hindsight, I think we should have tried to get the Nutella to a pourable consistency before we tried to pipe it into the doughnuts. But pfff, whatevs, they were still AMAZING.

Plus, if you felt the need to do so, you could easily fill them with raspberry jam instead of Nutella and just roll them in sugar! (Incidentally, you'll want to use caster sugar rather than white sugar to roll them. You get a far more even coating, and they look much prettier...)

Who knew gluten free doughnuts would be such a massive success!!

Did you participate in World Nutella Day?

K xx

Epic vagueness

In all the "YAY I DON'T HAVE TO WRITE A BLOG POST!!!"-ness that inevitably follows NaBloPoMo, I slacked off a little bit more than I meant to. WHOOPS. I haven't forgotten about you all, I promise. It's just that I'm sliiiiiiiiiightly braindead, and in dire need of not having an alarm go off in my ear at 6.20am.

There's not really all that much of interest going on at the moment. But I shall bullet point it all nonetheless:

• I finish my internship tomorrow, and will be flying back to Melbourne tomorrow night. I have not yet packed on account of it takes effort and I'm lazy. I suspect it will end with me jamming everything into my suitcase five minutes before I have to leave for the airport. WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.
• I made my triple chocolate brownies last night. Turns out, they go FABULOUSLY with Connoisseur Raspberry and White Chocolate ice cream:

OM NOM NOM NOM NOM.

• This morning, I ate breakfast with my hair up in a towel turban. This is not at all unusual, but this morning, the twins were awake. And apparently they'd never seen someone with their hair up in a towel turban before, because their facial expressions were priceless. Clapton gave me the stink eye and a face that screamed "What the fuck is on your head, lady? Are you aware that you look like a COMPLETE idiot??", while Bowie's eyes got reeeeeeeeeeeally big and she stared at me for five minutes with a face that yelled "DUDE. THERE IS A THING ON YOUR HEAD. IT'S EATING YOUR BRAINS. SERIOUSLY. IT'S TERRIFYING. YOU SHOULD GO AND LOOK IN THE MIRROR. OMFG." It was kind of hilarious. 

(To clarify, Clapton and Bowie are NOT their real names. I just couldn't cope with the addition of two more Little Miss [Initial] nicknames!)

• I saw a truck this morning with a Montana licence plate. IN CANBERRA. I am still confused about this, twelve hours later.
• I just saw an ad for a Broncos vs Raiders game on TV, and my first thought was "It's December. Doesn't rugby season end like a week after football season?!?!?!". And then I realised it was the DENVER Broncos vs the OAKLAND Raiders, not the Brisbane Broncos vs the Canberra Raiders like my brain told me it was. 
• I have done precisely zero Christmas shopping. Whoops?
• I apologise for the fact that I haven't been replying to comments, or commenting on all your blogs. I *have* been reading them. I've just been reading them on my phone on the bus, and by the time I'm on my laptop, I'm back to being vague again. 

YAY, VAGUENESS!! 

How are you guys? Hopefully less vague than me??

K xx

Triple chocolate brownies

I realised today when I went to make these to celebrate my last day of install tomorrow that I'd never actually posted the quantities required. I posted the photos waaaaaaaaaaaaay back in 2009 as my third post, and for whatever reason, I decided that it was sufficient to just list the ingredients and not the amounts. Weird...

Anyway, here's what you'll need to make my infamous triple chocolate brownies:

200g dark chocolate
200g butter (I use salt reduced)
3 eggs
1 1/4 cups caster sugar
1/2 cup cocoa
2/3 cup plain flour
2/3 cup chopped milk chocolate/choc chips
2/3 cup chopped white chocolate/choc chips

Melt the dark chocolate and the butter together in a double boiler. Leave to cool. Beat the eggs and the caster sugar together until light and fluffy. Add the chocolate/butter mixture and fold through. Sift in the cocoa and the flour, and add the chopped chocolate pieces. Mix together until combined.

Pour into a greased and lined 20cm tin, and bake at 170 degrees for 35-40 minutes. Cool in the tin for 10 minutes, then transfer to a cooling rack.

The way I cut them, it makes 36, but I'm pretty sure the original recipe says it makes 20 or 24. So basically, cut them whatever size you want!

Enjoy! :)

K xx

Brownies? Or blondies?

A year or so ago, a bunch of curators gathered for a brownie baking masterclass. And no, I wasn't the one supplying the brownies or doing the baking. That fell to Leah. Leah's an awesome baker, and makes her own chocolate truffles as well as her own line of spiffy accessories, Dressed for Sunday.

Anyway, one of the recipes she provided was for white chocolate brownies. And I decided, one year on, that it was about time I made them! Leah calls them brownies, but considering the lack of cocoa powder or dark chocolate, I think they're technically blondies. But when they taste as good as they do, who really cares what they're called!!

Right, let's get baking. Here's what you'll need:

Yes, that really is THREE blocks of white chocolate... Start by greasing and lining a baking tin, and preheating the oven to 180 degrees.

Dump 1/4 teaspoon of salt into a mixing bowl. It doesn't need to be a particularly large bowl, something I would have realised if I'd read more than just the ingredients list before starting!!

Sift 1.5 cups of plain flour in with the salt.

Then set the flour/salt mixture to one side.

Put three large, room temperature eggs into a mixing bowl. Now THIS time, you'll want to use a large bowl. Something I again would have realised if I'd read more than the ingredients...

Beat the eggs until frothy.

You'll need 3/4 cup of sugar, but the proportions of caster and brown sugars are up to you. The brown sugar gives them a fudgier (is that a word??) characteristic. So I used half brown sugar...

...and half caster sugar.

Beat the sugar into the eggs one tablespoon at a time.

Next, melt 3/4 cup of butter. I did weigh out how much it was, but now I can't for the life of me remember what it worked out to... I think it worked out to being just about the 3/4 cup line in the bowl in chopped chunks of butter.......

And chop up 1.5 cups of nuts. I used a combination of macadamias and cashews, but you can use whatever you like really!

And melt 300g of white chocolate. You can do it in the microwave in 30 second bursts, stirring in between. You don't want it to overheat, or it'll go completely feral and lumpy and you'll have to throw it out and start again:

Gently fold the melted chocolate and the melted butter into the sugar and egg mixture.

Then add 1.5 teaspoons of vanilla. Extract, not essence, obviously. Vanilla essence is the devil... If, however, you DO decide to use it, you'll need to use 3 teaspoons.

It may look a little curdled at this stage. According to Leah's recipe, this is normal and nothing to worry about.

Fold in the flour and salt mixture:

And stir gently until combined:

Finally, fold in the 1.5 cups of nuts, along with 210g of chopped white chocolate:

Mmmmm, lumpy goodness...

Pour into the prepared tin, and stick it in the oven. Leah's recipe says to cook them for 25 minutes, which will result in a slightly undercooked brownie/blondie. But mine were nowhere NEAR being slightly undercooked. They were just liquid. I ended up putting them in for 40 minutes, which resulted in the edge pieces being ever so slightly overcooked. So I'd go with around 35 minutes. Oh, and DON'T USE THE TOP TRAY OF THE OVEN! ;)

Cool in the tin, then cut into as many pieces as desired. I did 36, because that's what I do for my triple chocolate brownies and because I suck at cutting square things into five pieces. Six is much easier!! Check out how full of goodies they are! And no, those really white bits aren't feta cheese. That's the white chocolate. (Anyone else think they look like feta, or is it just me?????)

Mmmmmmmm, chunky...

Perfect little bite sized bits of deliciousness! I'm still torn over what to call them though...

They met with Leah's seal of approval, more or less. Five minutes less in the oven and putting them in the fridge before serving would have made them perfect! But I'll have to wait until next time to see how much of a difference that makes...

Enjoy!!

What do you think? Brownies? Or blondies???

K xx