I know, I know – you are thinking that I am weird putting marmite (or Vegemite) into a chocolate brownie! But people thought a salted caramel was strange not so long ago so you can kind of get where I am coming from.
What the marmite actually does here is to season and round out the chocolate and make it more chocolatey. You could use a tsp of salt instead if you are a confirmed marmite hater but as you won’t pick out marmite as an ingredient, as it’s role here is to blend and add to the whole, in my opinion you’d be missing out.
This is a very simple, easy recipe which makes it easy to get a lovely gooey, squidgy brownie. I’ve added roasted hazelnuts but you don’t have to (use any other nut, or leave nuts out entirely), and if you are gluten free it works with gluten free flour or ground almonds.
So go on, surprise yourself and make a batch. Have fun letting people guess the mystery ingredient! Most can’t stop stuffing these for long enough to answer – they are that good!
Ingredients
- 200g dark chocolate, roughly chopped
- 150g unsalted butter (don’t use salted because of salty marmite)
- 1tbsp marmite
- 3 eggs
- 250g caster sugar
- 50g plain flour
- 1tsp baking powder
- 100g hazelnuts, (skin on or off is fine)
Method
- Heat oven to 160 fan (350f/gas4). Line a 23cm/9” pan with baking parchment
- Melt chocolate, butter and marmite in a large bowl. Use either the microwave, or over pan of boiling water, until all melted and combined.
Allow to cool whilst you roast hazelnuts on baking tray in oven for 5 mins – set the timer as they can easily burn! When roasted, allow to cool and roughly chop!
Add sugar to the cooled chocolate marmite mix and stir thoroughly. - Beat in the eggs, one at a time, until we’ll mixed.
Add flour and baking powder fold gently, before adding hazelnuts and mixing it all together - Pour mix into lined pan and bake in oven for 20-25 mins till set but squidgy. I find mix loses its shine when they are ready. Don’t overtake if you want the brownie texture!
leave to cool in pan before cutting into 16 and trying not to eat them all
These work with a cup of tea or warm with ice-cream. They keep well in a tin or freeze.