Hummingbird Bakery Frosted Brownie

It’s Mel here. As you may have noticed, I haven’t posted much in the past ten days. This inaction is a result of a new job and travel to Sydney and Brisbane. I was fortunate to be able to spend the weekend in Brisbane with Alex and you’ll see the result of the weekend here. Unfortunately however it means I haven’t been able to post as much as I would have liked. Today’s post brings you a brownie recipe from The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook.

The ingredients are pretty common – 5 eggs; 500g Caster Sugar; 120g plain flour; 100g Cocoa Powder; 250g butter; 30g Walnuts (I used closes to 130g) and; 30g dark chocolate.

Weigh the butter (easy for Australian’s as our butter is sold in 250g blocks – however as you can see this particular block is 253g) and melt it. I always melt the butter in the microwave because it’s easy.

Combine the sugar and eggs and beat until light and fluffy. Add the flour, cocoa powder and beat until all the ingredients are well mixed. The recipe required 30 more grams of cocoa powder than I had, so I simply made up the weight in flour. I don’t feel it was detrimental to the taste of the brownie.

Weigh and roughly chop the chocolate and the walnuts. For such a large tray of brownies I looked at the amount of walnuts was not nearly enough. I added 100g more of walnuts and could have even used more. Stir them into the dry mixture.

Is there anything better than a lovely cake/brownie mix? It’s smooth and you need to resist eating it straight from the bowl.

Simply transfer the brownie mix into the tin and bake in a moderate over for 30 to 35 minutes. I tend to under-bake just ever so slightly as it tends to cook as its cooling and you end up with a moist brownie. Or at least I’ve convinced myself that’s what happens.

Icing Sugar; Melted Butter and Chocolate

So, sometimes I don’t read ahead and I just assume things. Like I assumed I had enough cocoa powder for the recipe. I was wrong. For the icing instead of cocoa I decided to melt some chocolate with the butter instead.

The butter/icing sugar/chcolate is added to some softened cream cheese and mixed together. As you can see from this picture it isn’t the most attractive icing. So I added some purple food colouring to it.

The brownie was nice and moist, but it’s too cake like. I like my brownies to be gooey and soft with a crunch from the nut.I think the texture is a result of the ingredients – the brownie recipe I adore using melted chocolate and cocoa.

Hummingbird Bakery Frosted Brownie*

Brownie Ingredients

5 eggs
500g caster sugar
120g plain flour
100g cocoa powder
250g unsalted butter, melted
30g shelled walnuts, chopped (If you like a crunch use much more than this)
30g dark chocolate, roughly chopped

Preheat the oven to 170°C (325°F) .
Put the eggs and sugar in a large bowl and beat with a handheld electric whisk until light and fluffy. Add the flour and cocoa powder and beat until all the ingredients are well mixed. Pour in the melted butter and mix through. Stir the walnuts and chocolate in by hand until evenly dispersed.
Spoon the mixture into the prepared baking tray and bake in the preheated oven for about 30–35 minutes, or until the top is firm but the centre is still soft. Leave to cool completely

Icing Ingredients

200g icing sugar, sifted
75g unsalted butter, at room temperature
30g cocoa powder, sifted
150g cream cheese

Beat together the icing sugar, butter and cocoa powder in an electric mixer with a paddle attachment on medium-slow speed until the mixture comes together and is well mixed.
Add the cream cheese in one go and beat until it is completely incorporated. Turn the mixer up to medium-high speed. Continue beating until the frosting is light and fluffy, at least 5 minutes. Do not overbeat, as it can quickly become runny.
When the brownie is cold, spread the frosting over the top.

* Tarek Malouf, 2009. Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook. Edition. Ryland Peters & Small

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