Baking Made Easy by Lorraine Pascale

The first time I heard about Lorraine Pascale was a few years ago when she presented part of a weekly Masterclass on Masterchef Australia. She made her Mojito Genoise (also included in this book), and I remember a certain cheeky contestant remarking on how he couldn't concentrate on the recipe because he was distracted by the teacher. Turns out it was with good reason, as Lorraine is a model-turned-cook, who is now very well-known and successful in the UK.

I love Lorraine and I love this book. Instead of numbering her recipes into arbitrary steps, her recipes are organised into paragraphs, which creates a much more casual tone (it sounds strange, but it really does make it feel like a more personal experience! Kind of like writing in Tom Riddle's diary, and how he writes back... yeah, it's not really the same. I tried). 
There are plenty of great recipes in here, which perhaps raises the question of why I chose one of the most basic baked goods, a recipe for something which is present in most sweet-based cookbooks and is hardly anything revolutionary; the humble brownie.

Though what the brownie lacks in sophistication, it more than makes up for in taste and simplicity of preparation. Essentially, it's melt-mix-stir and bake, producing comfort and deliciousness in one tiny little square.
Last week a certain friend of mine with the comical tendemcy to mis-pronounce the name of the university cafe (*cough* 'Maxine' *cough*) grew another year older, and I figured it'd be the perfect time to actually bake him something rather than leaving him to cry over foodpornographic Instagram photos. As much as I love baking and decorating cupcakes for someone's birthday, I was short on time and needed something transportable enough to survive a day out in the city.
This is not the recipe I usually use for brownies (that one, surprise surprise, was found online), so it was good to try a different one while ticking a book off the list.
This uses brown sugar and a LOT more butter than I'm used to (and hardly any flour!), and I swear that I put on a few kilos just by looking at this (for the dieters out there looking at this....... #soznotsoz).
However, they were delicious and Mr Maxine was very happy.
This was the second time I have used Oreos in a brownie batter, and I highly recommend it. The chewy and fudgy texture of the brownies, coupled with the crunchiness of the Oreos, is naice. Very naice.



Cookies and Cream Fudge Brownies 
Adapted From 'Baking Made Easy' by By Lorraine Pascale
Ingredients
165g butter
200g dark chocolate, grated or broken into pieces
3 whole eggs
2 egg yolks
2 tsp vanilla extract
165g soft light brown sugar
2 tbs plain flour
1 tbs cocoa powder
Pinch of salt
1 pkt Oreos 

Preheat the oven to 180°C and grease and line a 20cm x 20cm square baking tin.

Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Once melted, add the chocolate and stir until completely melted and combined.

Whisk the eggs, egg yolks and vanilla together in a large bowl until they become light and fluffy. Add half the sugar and whisk to combine, and then add in the other half. Ensure that the sugar is added from the side of the bowl (as opposed to being dumped in the middle) to retain the airiness of the mixture. Whisk until the mixture thickens and lightens in colour.

Add in the chocolate mixture, again taking care to add it from the side of the bowl. Then add the salt, flour and cocoa powder, stirring until just combined.

Pour the mixture into the tin and bake for 25 - 30 minutes. (I found this batter to take a longer time to cook than my usual one, so ensure that it is almost completely baked before taking it out of the oven or you might find yourself shoving the entire unsliced brownie back into the pan to keep cooking! Not that I did that............). Ensure it does not overbake, as the brownies will continue to cook from the residual heat in the baking pan once removed from the oven. It should be set but still a little wobbly in the centre.

Allow the brownies to cool in the pan and then slice into squares.


Close enough? Close enough.

Pascale, L 2011, Baking Made Easy, HarperCollins Publishers, London.