How to Make Brownies

Here's a recipe on how to make delicious brownies in a few easy to follow steps.

Ingredients

First of all you'll need to collect your ingredients. You will need to get 1/4 cup of cocoa, half a teaspoon of salt, 1 and 1/4 cups of plain flour, 1 teaspoon of baking powder, 3 eggs, 3/4 cup of melted butter, 2 cups of sugar, 1 teaspoon or more of vanilla essence/extract and lastly 1 cup of what ever other surprise ingredient you may wish to add, whether it be white chocolate chips, nuts, sprinkles. Of course the surprise ingredient is optional and completely up to you whether you want it or not.

Method

Before starting make sure to preheat the oven to 350ºF.

Once you have collected all your ingredients and set them aside for quick usage, and turned on your oven, you can begin making the brownies. Begin by placing the cocoa, baking powder, salt and surprise ingredient (optional) into a bowl. You can either put the plain flour in how it is or you can put it through a sieve to get it lighter and less chunky depending on how you like your brownies. When all the dry ingredients are in the bowl then you can mix them together using a Wooden spoon.

Once the dry ingredients are mixed together you can begin to add in the wet ingredients, but first you may need to get a bigger bowl. Put the eggs, sugar, butter and vanilla extract into the larger bowl and mix them together using your wooden spoon, once all the wet ingredients are mixed together then add in the dry ingredients. Mix everything together until it makes a nice thick, chocolate brownie mix.

Pour the brownie mix out of the bowl into a 13 X 9 inch oiled pan (you may also want to use baking paper.), but if you don't have a 13 X 9 inch pan then just use a pan that you think will be a suitable size, remembering that you don't want your brownies to be too thin.

Cooking

Put the pan into your preheated oven which should be at about 350ºF and cook them for approximately 25 minutes, the time could vary slightly depending on the thickness of your brownie mix but it is easy to tell when they are ready by checking that the edges are set and the center is still soft. It is important not to overcook the brownies and to stick a skewer in the middle every so often to check how they are cooking.

Once the brownies have cooked, take them out of the oven using a tea towel or oven mitts so you don't burn your hands and then place the brownies on a wire rack to cool for a while.

Icing (Optional)

When the brownies have cooled down you may want to put icing on them, It is important not to put the icing on whilst they are still too hot otherwise the icing will simply melt and run off the sides.

To make icing you will need the following ingredients. 1/3 cups of butter, 2 cups of icing sugar, 2 tablespoons of milk and a 1/4 teaspoon of vanilla. (for vanilla icing only.) You may choose to use different flavoring depending on what kind of Icing you wish to make.

Once you have all the ingredients beat them together in a bowl using a butter knife or a wooden spoon. I prefer to use a butter knife as it mixes the ingredients together better and can be used to spread the icing afterward. When the icing is thick and mixed you can then spread it on top of the brownies using a butter knife.

Serving

You may want to drizzle chocolate over the top of your brownies or sprinkles, which will help to make them look more delicious before serving. Cut the brownies into squares and place them in a pile on a large plate ready to be eaten.