Chocolate Week - Carpe Diem Brownies

I've come to a decision ~ I'm not weighing myself this week! In fact, I may not weigh myself for the rest of the month cause that's how long it's going to take me to burn off all this chocolate I am only two days in. I should be hanging my head in shame right now, but I'm not. Carpe Diem!

White Chocolate and Macadamia Nut Brownies

200g dark chocolate, chopped (I used milk chocolate)

100g unsalted butter

115g vanilla caster sugar

2 tsp natural vanilla extract (I used a good dollop of vanilla bean paste)

2 eggs, lightly beaten

40g plain flour

150g white chocolate

110g macadamia nuts, chopped (I skipped the chopping, I really like the look of the nuts and chocolate left whole/chunky when the brownie is sliced)

Preheat the oven to 180C. Lightly grease a 20cm square cake tin and line with baking paper. (My tin is oblong, maybe 14 x 20cm but it worked just fine).

The original recipe says to combine the chocolate, 2 tbsp of water and the butter in a saucepan but I added them to a heatproof bowl and placed this over a pan of simmering water just to be on the safe side. Stir over low heat until the chocolate and butter have melted and the mixture is smooth. Stir in the sugar. Remove from the heat.

Stir in the vanilla bean paste (or extract), eggs and flour. Mix until well combined.

Chop the white chocolate into large chunks. Stir the chocolate and nuts into the mixture. Stop stirring as soon as the chocolate begins to melt. Spoon the mixture into the prepared tin. Bake for 35 mins, or until the top is firm to touch. Cool in the tin, then cut into squares.

Store in an airtight container for up to 3 days.

Makes 20 squares (yeah right!)

Taken from 'A Cook's Book Of Decadence - Chocolate, Coffee, Caramel'

I love the title of this book, it was one of the reasons why I bought it. Can you believe I found it in the bargain bin at my local bookshop!!!! It certainly looks as though it has seen better days and even though this is the first time I've actually made something from it I've probably read it cover to cover at least 20 times in the last year.

There have been a lot of blogs with Brownie recipes on them lately and I've copied down each and every one of them in my notebook for recipes to try in the future but white chocolate and macadamia are two of my favourite food stuffs and helped nudge this recipe ahead of the others. Hubby had to 'sample' three brownies for his taste test before proclaiming them a success, I don't think he'll be stepping on the scales this week either!

I cut the brownies slightly larger than the recipe recommended. If you're going to be naughty then you may as well do it properly! The rest of these will be taken into work tomorrow, Gaz got stuck with a particularly nasty piece of work on the audit today instead of me so I promised him brownies to make up for it! Hope they last till morning ...