Courgette and Chocolate Brownies

These are virtuous and easy to make.  You would never know these have courgettes in them. They are chocolately and you feel no guilt in eating them.  If you don’t fancy the frosting, you can serve these with warm baobab and blueberry sauce.   I’ve given a recipe for this below too.

You’ll need

• 3 eggs 
• 180g light muscavado sugar
• 300g courgettes
• 100g ground almonds
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 120g plain flour
• 60g cocoa powder

For the icing

• 150g soft unsalted butter
• 100g dark chocolate 80% cocoa solids
• 150g icing sugar

To make them

1. Preheat the oven to 180C. 
2. Grease a 10 inch by 10 inch baking tray and line it with greaseproof paper
3. Whisk the eggs and the sugar until you have a caramel coloured, frothy mixture.  I use my KitchenAid with the whisk attachment and set it on medium speed for about 10 minutes.
4. Meanwhile, grate the courgettes and weigh out the rest of the ingredients.
5. Once your egg mixture is ready, change the whisk to a paddle beater attachment and mix in the courgettes until they are well combined.
6. Add the cocoa, powder, baking powder, ground almonds and beat til combined.
7. Sieve in the flour and mix it in gently.
8. Pour the batter like mixture into a baking tray and bake for 30 minutes. This will not rise much so don’t worry if you’re peeking into the oven and it’s not doing anything!  A cocktail stick will come out clean when it’s ready.
9. Leave it to cool in the tin and then on a wire rack.
10. To make the frosting, beat the butter and the icing sugar until it’s light and fluffy.  About 15 minutes with the paddle beater on the KitchenAid.
11. Melt the chocolate over a pan of simmering water or in a microwave at 30 second intervals.
12. Let the chocolate cool and then pour it into the icing and beat to combine.
13. Once the brownie base is cool, cut it into squares – I opted for about 2 inches by 2 inches – and then pipe swirls of the icing on top of each square.
14. Alternatively you can leave the base square and then spoon the frosting over the top, spreading it out evenly with a palette knife.

If you are serving these as a dessert, they taste really lovely with a side dollop of blueberries in warmed baobab jam.  Take one punnet of blueberries, 2 heaped tablespoons of baobab jam and warm in a small saucepan with a tablespoon of water.

Or you can split the batter between two 18cm victoria sandwich tins and layer up a cake!

More courgette recipes…