Charlene’s brownies

THE secret is out: here is the recipe for chocolate brownies which first wowed chocaholics in Port Elizabeth at Newton Park’s Blue Cactus cafe many years ago. WhenBlue Cactus closed, one of the kitchen staff, Charlene Magaqa, took the recipe with her to Cherry Place, at Red Cherry Adventures Walmer.

Even there the recipe was for many years a closely guarded secret – enjoy!

CHOCOLATE BROWNIES

Ingredients:

85g unsalted butter

140g castor sugar

125g dark chocolate broken into pieces

100g pecan nuts

1 tablespoon golden syrup

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla or chocolate essence

100g plain flour

2 tablespoons of cocoa powder , plus a little extra for dusting

½ teaspoon baking powder

Method:

Preheat the own to 180ºC. Lightly grease a 20cm baking tin and line the base.

Place the butter, sugar, chocolate and syrup in a heavy based saucepan and heat gently, stirring until the mixture is well blended and smooth. Remove from the heat and leave to cool.

Beat together the eggs and vanilla essence. Whisk in the cooled chocolate mixture.

Sift together the flour, cocoa and baking powder and fold carefully into the egg and chocolate mixture using a metal spoon and add the pecan nuts.

Spoon the cake mixture into the prepared tin and bake in a preheated over for 25minutes until the top is crisp and the edge of the cake is starting to shrink away from the tin.

The inside of the cake will still be quite "gooey” and soft to the touch.

Leave to cool completely in the tin, dust with cocoa powder, then cut into squares and serve.