St Clements Brownies

Just like the T1000 melting at the end of Terminator 2.

I know some people laugh at the notion of "leftover chocolate", or even "chocolate you haven't eaten yet", but around Easter I realised I had some chocolate left from Christmas and wanted to use it up. It was dated best before October this year (better not to think about what they did to it to give it that shelf life), so I could have kept it for longer, but I felt that it was time.

I also had most of a packet of Marks & Spencer nuts which had sounded really tempting at the checkout but didn't really float my boat as a snack. They were very sticky and the pack wasn't re-sealable and it was all a bit messy. Plus after about a minute I found the random use of italics on the pack irritating.

The milk chocolate was too sweet for me, so I added 100g of very dark chocolate to it as it melted, poured it over the nuts and let it set. It made a fantastic, sustaining snack for a long day of dance workshops.

But then I still had quite a lot left over of that. And for a couple of weeks it sat in the cupboard, never quite tempting me. So, since it had been ages since I sent anything in for the gannets Paul works with, I turned it into brownies. This is fairly typical of the way I approach leftovers - I try really hard to avoid food waste and some things go through a couple of different incarnations on the way.

St Clements Brownies

125g butter
300g St Clements chocolate, chopped (or any dark fruit & nut chocolate, but without the orange and lemon bits it won't be St Clements)
3 eggs (I actually used 2 whole eggs and 1 yolk, because I wanted the white for something else)
100g caster sugar
200g plain flour

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Line your favourite brownie-baking tin with baking parchment.

In a double boiler, or heatproof bowl set over a pan of simmering water, melt the butter and chocolate. Remove from the heat and allow to cool slightly.

In a separate bowl, beat the eggs and sugar until pale and fluffy. Beat in the cooled chocolate mixture. Fold in the flour. Pour into the lined tin and bake for 20 minutes or until the top is firm and the inside is still a bit soft. Cool in the tin before cutting into squares.

Definitely delicious - I kept some back for myself