You know what makes chocolate even more chocolate-y? Coffee! It adds a nice depth of flavour, balances some of the sweetness and makes the dessert even better! Trust me!
I love baking brownies and have a few variations of the classic one on the blog. An easy way to amp up the brownie is definitely by adding some good ol’ coffee to the mix! Dark, intense, fudgy and divine – these are a must-try!
A lot of my food knowledge and inspiration comes from the vast amount of reading and TV show watching I did as a kid (the TV show bingeing continues even now but reading has sadly taken a backseat). From Enid Blytons to Nancy Drew and even Sweet Valley, I read them all! While the stories were great, the way food was described was especially spectacular! I really wanted to be part of those picnics, the after school hang outs, the midnight snacks..you name it, I wanted to be there!
One snack that was written about very often in the American books was the Peanut Butter & Jelly sandwich. It seemed to be every child’s go to after school snack and sounded very intriguing to me. Peanut butter was not a common thing for us growing up, but we got it a few times and then I tried it just the way the kids in the books did. Mind was blown! Sweet, salty, crunchy and delicious – this was a magical flavour combo! It’s become one of my favourite things to have over the years and this recipe takes that sandwich and amps it up in dessert form 🙂
Till I was in my late teens, chocolate meant just chocolate. No added flavour (except mint thanks to major love for After Eight). I was ok with textures in chocolate, like nuts, raisins, rice puffs (Crackle being my favourite!), but not with flavours.
As I grew older I started trying more dark chocolate and then through some bars of fancy Lindt, also experimented with flavoured chocolate. While some combos are not my scene, I definitely love chocolate and orange as a pair. I’m not a fan of sweet orange filling in chocolate, but I love a zesty orange background flavour mixed in to the chocolate. The darker the chocolate the better, in this case. These brownies are inspired by this decadent flavour combo and are downright irresistible!
Mint is one of those herbs that works beautifully in both sweet and savoury dishes. I’ve not played around with it much yet, but was inspired when I went plant shopping and saw this lovely mint plant. It smelt so bright and fresh that I had to buy it! I subsequently ended up killing it somehow (someone please teach me how to take care of plants!), but the idea had formed by then. The first thing that had popped into my mind when I smelt that mint was how it would pair the best with chocolate. What could be better than brownies which have these two flavours in each divine bite?
Nutella is a pretty magical ingredient, don’t you think? Eat it plain on a spoon, slather it on hot toast, layer it between a crepe, swirl it through cake – all work wonderfully!
These Nutella blondies are super duper easy to make and taste divine!
