Birthday Butterscotch Brownies

On the 11th of August it was my birthday, and I threw a Tea Party at the weekend with some of my friends to celebrate.

The Queen of Hearts, naturally.

We were all way too busy eating to take pictures of everything individually, so I’ll be posting some of bakes I made individually soon. One cake stand just out of sight in that picture is full of mini lemon loaves. They are a combination of the cake mix from the lemon loaf with white chocolate frosting post and the mini loaf tray used to make these little sticky ginger cakes. The mini loaf mould doesn’t seem to be available by John Lewis any more but I’ve found it here on Amazon.

These butterscotch brownies were a birthday treat I didn’t share.

The recipe is from Easy cakes and cookies.

75g shelled pecans
225g plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
a pinch of salt
150g soft butter
150g light brown sugar
100g unrefined sugar
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
50g white chocolate chips
75g toffees, chopped

To decorate
150g sugar
150ml double cream
200g soft butter

a 20 x 30xm baking tin, greased and lined with baking parchment
a piping bag, fitted with a plain tip

Preheat the oven to 170°C (325°F) Gas 3.

Tip the pecans onto a baking sheet and lightly toast in the preheated oven for 5 minutes. Roughly chop and leave to cool.

Sift together the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt.

In a separate bowl, cream together the butter and sugars until pale and light. Gradually add the eggs, beating well after each addition. Stir in the vanilla extract. Fold the sifted dry ingredients into the bowl until well incorporated, then stir in the chocolate chips, pecans and toffees. I chopped my toffees down to a similar size to the pecans as they were quite large. Spoon the mixture into the prepared baking tin, spread level and bake on the middle shelf of the preheated oven for 25 minutes.

Remove from the oven and leave to cool completely in the tin.

For the decoration, put the sugar and 1-2 tablespoon water in a small, heavy based saucepan over a low-medium heat and let the sugar dissolve without stirring. Tip: Add your water carefully to ensure your sugar stays level. Raise the heat and continue to cook until the sugar turns a deep amber colour.

Remove from the heat and add the cream – the caramel will bubble furiously and harden, but stir to melt the caramel into the cream and leave until completely cold. Be careful, the steam released from the mixture burnt my eyes. Mix with caution.

Beat the butter until light and fluffy, then add the cold caramel in a steady stream until thoroughly incorporated and smooth.

Remove the brownies from the tin and cut into portions. Spoon the caramel frosting into the prepared piping bag and pipe a generous amount on the top of each brownie.

Fight your family for the last one.

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Harleigh Reid

I write about food and eat a lot.

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