Chocolate Mint Brownies

Oh my. 

So, I was sitting at home, on a weekend evening, browsing recipes online. Don’t you judge me. I happened to google two of my favourite things: “brownie” and “mint.” And look what came up! Something so dense and chewy and chocolately, but with a delightfully crisp and creamy mint centre. This is what I have been waiting my whole life for.

It is fairly similar to my favourite traybake, and actual favourite thing that I cook: Peppermint squares (recipe to come). I find this a quite Americanised version, with the dense brownie base replacing the more traditional (to me) crispy cornflake base, and it is just delightful.

You need this in your life.

Ingredients for the Brownies

• 110g butter
• 110g chocolate
• 250g white sugar
• 1tsp vanilla extract or 1tsbp vanilla sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 90g plain flour
• ¼ tsp salt

Ingredients for the mint layer

• 30g butter
• 1 and ¼ cup icing sugar
• 1-1.5 tbsp milk
• ¼ tsp peppermint extract

Ingredients for the chocolate glaze

• 100g chopped dark chocolate
• 50g butter

Method

To begin, make the brownie layer by first melting the butter and chocolate carefully together in a small pan. Keep an eye, if it burns it’s a disaster. 

Part milk chocolate, part dark chocolate

Remove from the heat and stir in the sugar and vanilla, this usually serves to cool it slightly too.

I poured my chocolate into the sugar, mainly to speed the cooling process and because I used too small a pan initially

Add in the eggs one at a time, mixing after each. 

Egg.

 

Finally stir in the flour and salt until the mixture is smooth and glossy.

Pour into a greased and lined brownie pan (a square one) and bake at 160 degrees for 25 minutes in a preheated oven.

Remove when cooked through, it should be glossy on top, and a skewer should come out clean. Leave to cool in the pan.

While you’re letting it cool, make the mint layer. Beat the butter until smooth and sift in the icing sugar. If it’s too wet add more icing sugar, if you need more of it add more of both. Mix in the peppermint flavouring and up to 1.5 tbsp of milk if needed for the texture to be smooth.

Once the brownies are cooled, spread the mixture on top.

Refrigerate for 10 minutes.

In the meantime, melt the chocolate and butter, carefully as before, and spread this over the chilled mint filling. Refrigerate for 30 minutes or until the chocolate layer has hardened.

GLORIOUS

Slice into squares, I think I got 36 brownies or so out of mine.

Store in a sealed container in the fridge. Mainly for texture, I preferred a firmer brownie. I was eating these 5 days after making (I said don’t JUDGE) and they were still great.