Niamh Shields burst onto the blogging scene in 2007 and has since snapped up countless accolades for her food writing by The Times, The Telegraph and The Stylist, to name a few. Niamh is passionate about cooking, and when she's not travelling the world collecting culinary tips, she's at home concocting new and interesting meals for friends and family, including her foody fledgling niece. Here, Niamh shares all her know-how for delicious and easy home-cooking.
Greetings and brownies
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Hello! Greetings from my lovely new iVillage.co.uk home. I’ve been writing recipes here for a while, but as much as I love to cook, I also love to chat, so a blog seemed like the obvious next step and here I am.
What I intend to do here is cook great tasting food that is super simple. Easy. Food from across the spectrum: soups, stews, hearty salads, cakes, bakes and anything else that is delicious.
You see, cooking shouldn’t be difficult unless you want it to be. Before supermarkets started selling us ready meals, every single person cooked their own dinner. So, of course we can too. This is about doing it a little better without any extra stress and with a dash of pleasure.
I thought that I would start with something rich, sweet and decadent. Recently I cooked with my tiny just-turned-two year old niece, who is an utter chocolate addict (when she is allowed it as a treat, of course). She also loves berries. I thought it would be fun to cook heart shaped little brownies in a heart shaped muffin tray that I have at home, rich with raspberries as well as gorgeous chocolate.
They worked really well, the raspberries render them gooey, in a foolproof way, and the raspberries and chocolate together make them irresistible.
Now, I did make a mistake. I used dark chocolate which is way too intense for a tiny thing like my niece. So, my advice to you is for you and your friends use dark chocolate (min 70% cocoa solids), and for the small people in your life use a friendlier milk chocolate.
These are super easy and quick in a mixer – either bowl or handheld. A little more work by hand but not too challenging. Make individually if you have nice moulds, or in one big slab as brownies are traditionally made.
Ingredients
225g chocolate (milk for kids, dark for adults – as above)
100g butter
150g sugar (if using dark chocolate – 125g for milk chocolate)
50g plain flour
2 large eggs
Pinch of sea salt
100g fresh raspberries
Method
- Preheat your oven to 180 deg C and line a tray approx 10” x 5” (roughly) and an inch deep with buttered greaseproof paper. If using a little heart shaped tray like I have here, make sure each one is heavily buttered.
- Melt the butter and chocolate in a pan over a low heat. Stir and watch it, taking care it doesn’t burn. (It’s absolutely fine to melt the chocolate over direct heat in this way, as you are melting it with the butter).
- When melted, pour the chocolate and butter into your mixer bowl and on medium speed while whisking add the sugar, flour, pinch of salt and the eggs. Add the eggs one at a time.
- Whisk for a couple of minutes or so until you have a smooth glossy mixture that is starting to come away from the bowl. This will take longer by hand.
- Mush the raspberries with a wooden spoon on the side of a bowl or with your fingers and mix into the brownie mixture.
- Pour into the waiting tray and spread out. Bake for 30 minutes until just set on top – no longer or they will be over cooked. If baking small ones 25 minutes.
- Allow to cool in the tray and cut into squares for serving. Or simply turn them out if you’re making the little heart shaped ones.
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