The end of the year is at last upon us and what a year it has been.
I'll be honest: my year hasn't been as awful compared to others. I've paid off my student debt and credit card debt; I bought a beautiful gaming laptop that I love to bits; and I've found myself in the arms of one I've loved and yearned for for 17 years.
The good, however, has come with its own slice of bad in regards to the health and lifespan of a couple of family members, but I won't go into that. At least Coronavirus did not affect us.
To smack a nice, tasty ending on the arse of this year, I thought I would make some adult-friendly brownies -- no, not hash-brownies. Baileys Brownies! Perfect to celebrate the beginning of a (hopefully) better year.
My partner's grandma made the best everything that he can remember. I've managed to oust her from the number one spot when it comes to lasagne; now I've been dared to make brownies better than hers. Having never made brownies from scratch before -- I'm more of a cake person -- all I can say is that I'll try my best!
After skimming through various recipes to see how other people make it, I decided to grab every ingredient that seemed to be of use and play it by ear.
I ended up using for the cakey brownie bit:
125g of self raising flour
100g of butter + a heaped tablespoon of margarine as I ran out of butter
200g block of milk cooking chocolate
225g of white sugar
3 eggs
2 Baileys lids of... Baileys.
The butter and chocolate was melted together, then I mixed in the sugar.
Bit by bit, I slowly mixed the flour in, and the Baileys.
Then with trusty electric whisk in hand, I whisked in the eggs until the batter was nice and smooth, and poured the lot into a tray!
With oven preheated to 160 Celsius, I chucked it in and prayed. From what I was reading 30 minutes should be sufficient, but we shall soon see... as I am cooking as I write this up, haha!
Ta-da! 🎉🥳
I think it looks about right. I guess if I used/actually had dark chocolate, it would look a bit browner. Now we wait for it to cool so I can get to making a nice Baileys fudge to pour over the top. 😁
For the fudge, I am planning on the following ingredients:
200g block of milk cooking chocolate
250g of condensed milk
125mL of Baileys
a tablespoon of cocoa powder
a heeeaped tablespoon of margarine, for alas, there is no more butter.
Thinking of being fancy and sprinkling over some icing sugar. Need to wait for the baked goods to cool. Impatience!
So it's been about half an hour and the brownie is still a bit warm and what remains of my patience wears thin. I'm making the fudge now anyway! It's all going to sit in the fridge after this regardless, so, whatever.
In my trusty saucepan, I've melted the chocolate and condensed milk and butter and Baileys alllll together. I was warned in one of the many recipes I read and stole from that it's possible the mixture could go a bit whacky whilst in the saucepan. Luckily. For me. It didn't!
After melting it all together I whisked it with my other trusty tool, the electric whisk, and proceeded to pour it on top of the somewhat-cooled baked goods, then I threw the thing in the fridge!
Instead of icing sugar, I'm now tempted to melt some white chocolate and dribble it over the top as a tasty decoration later.
We'll see.
Gots to make some whipped cream too, assuming the remaining thickened cream from last week is still good. Fingers crossed. If not, we have a lotttttt of custard that'll serve just as well.
You get to read this instantly, but I have to wait several hours before sharing.
But.
Here it is!
...devoured, haha.
And my partner's verdict?
Tasty, but not better than his grandma's. 🤣 Will try a non-Baileys one next time, with dark chocolate, but either way this is perfect for a New Years Eve treat!
✨ Happy New Year!! 🎈
May the next be better than the last.
😬
All photos in this post are mine, cheers! 🍷 Happy new year!