Everyone loves chocolate brownies

Ok, I love to bake and as a dietitian I wanted to share with you one of my favourite recipes suitable for a gluten free and low fodmap diet. I am often asked to cook a dessert for a large group of friends and a batch of these does the trick!  They are quick to make with only a few store cupboard ingredients and they also freeze well if you have any left over! My heart sinks when I see recipes with a huge list of ingredients.

I tend to cut them up into small pieces as they are rich and it keeps the calories down too. My boys (aged between 9 and 15 years old) love the walnut free version but they have not realised that there are almonds in them!

Ingredients

200g butter/milk free margarine

200g 70% cocoa chocolate (2 bars)

3 eggs

100g castor sugar

125g light or dark muscovado sugar (the darker one will give a more “treacly” taste)

1-2 teaspoons of vanilla extract

200g ground almonds

1 tablespoon cocoa powder

optional 75g walnuts chopped roughly

Method

1.  Pre   heat the oven to 180^o C and lightly grease a 21cm/29cm tin. I have a great stoneware dish that I use for all tray bakes, that doesn’t need any greasing at all. Remember a non-stick tray will be great too.

2.  Melt the butter and add the chocolate stirring in until melted. I tend to use the microwave for this. Leave to cool slightly.

3.  Whisk up the eggs, sugars and vanilla extract in a food mixer,

4.  Stir the almonds and cocoa powder into the egg mixture then the chocolate mix.

5.  Finally fold in the walnuts and pour into the lightly greased tin.

6.  Cook for 30 minutes until firm.  Leave to cool before cutting into pieces.

Makes 20 smallish pieces/15 big ones!

Lovely to serve with Greek yoghurt or ice-cream (if you do not have lactose intolerance) or raspberries and strawberries. Often a little dusting with icing sugar can be really pretty………. enjoy!