Valentine's brownies recipe

Our Valentines brownies are sure to be a great addition to your romantic evening.

While the formula for these lovely treats is based off our original chocolate brownie recipe, we've added some sweet additions to make them a really special dessert for Valentine's Day this year. Not only are the brownies cut into heart shapes but we've added red swirl cake mix and food colouring to bring out the colour that's so synonymous with the occasion. If just dark chocolate isn't enough chocolate for you though, you could add white chocolate chunks to the mixture to make these brownies even sweeter.

Ingredients

Brownie mix:

• 2 x 100g bars dark chocolate
• 100g unsalted butter, very soft
• 250g caster sugar
• 4 large free range eggs, beaten to mix
• 1tsp vanilla essence
• 60g plain flour
• 60g cocoa powder

Red swirl cake mix

• 1 egg
• 50g butter
• 50g caster sugar
• 50g plain flour
• Red food colouring

To decorate:

• Icing sugar
• Heart shaped cookie cutters

Method

1. Heat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas Mark 4 and grease and line a baking tray.
2. To make the brownie mix, break up the dark chocolate and melt in short bursts in the microwave, stirring in between. Leave to cool.
3. Combine the butter and sugar into the bowl of a food mixer and beat until light and fluffy. Gradually beat in the eggs and the vanilla essence.
4. Stir in the melted chocolate and then sift the flour and cocoa into the mixture and stir until completely combined.
5. Spoon the mixture into the prepared baking tray and spread evenly.
6. To make the red cake mixture, mix all the ingredients (aside from the food colouring) together until evenly combined. Add a few drops of food colouring at a time until you get the desired colour.
7. Drizzle the red cake mixture over the brownie mix, using a fork to swirl the mixture across the surface.
8. Bake in the heated oven for about 20-25 mins until firm to the touch but still a bit fudgy. Leave to cool.
9. To decorate with icing sugar hearts, simply place some heart shaped cookie cutters on the brownie surface and lightly sieve icing sugar around them. You could also cut out paper or card hearts and place on top of the brownie before dusting.

Top tips for making Valentine's brownies:

When you put the food colouring in the brownies, be sure not to overmix the batter. This is something people often do when they include food colouring in baking but doing so can cause the brownie mixture to toughen. Just mix the ingredients enough to combine them together.

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