Cocoa Brownies

 

Cocoa is used rather than chocolate to make these delicious brownies. I created them to inspire readers of the Breeze radio website ( to which I contribute a weekly recipe) to enter The Big Fair Bake, a competition to encourage cooks to use Fair Trade products which helps to give farmers and their families in some of the poorest countries in the world a Fair Go.

Ingredients

225 gm butter

1 ¾ cups of castor sugar

¼ cup of brown sugar

 

2 teaspoons of vanilla essence

4 large eggs

¾ cup of Fair Trade Cococa

½ teaspoon of baking  powder

a pinch of salt

1 cup of flour

 

Method:

Melt the butter

Stir in the sugar and vanilla essence

Take off the heat and beat in the eggs  one at a time. A thorough beating will result in a lighter brownie.

Sieve the cocoa,  add the salt and mix these in well.

Sift the flour and baking powder and mix in gently . I use my silicone spatula for this.

At this point you can add a handful of dark and white chocolate chips and/ or freeze dried raspberries if you wish although these brownies are good plain as well.

Line a 20-23 cm tin with baking paper and pour the brownie mixture in.

Bake for 20-25 minutes at 180 degrees C until the centre is slightly firm to the touch.

 

Don’t overbake. Brownies should have a fudgy texture.

Let then cool in the pan, before dredging with icing sugar and cutting.