I'm starting to understand why moving house is the third most stressful experience in your life.
We're only at the start of the process and already the brownie consumption in our (hopefully soon to be former) flat has sky-rocketed
In some ways, it's bit like the start of a relationship. I spend most of the day staring at my phone, willing it to ring. I go for a long walk round the office or go on a lengthy trip to the stationery cupboard to try and trick someone into calling me with good news when I'm not there to answer. The other day, I refreshed my email so many times that I was locked out of my email account.
And then there are the meltdowns.
I like to consider myself to be a pretty laid-back person; I've never seen the point of worrying unnecessarily about things that you can't do anything about. But there's something about this whole process of viewings and conversations in which you reveal the most intimate details of your life with a total stranger and decisions about whether our sofas would fit in a room that seems to have left me slightly unhinged.
Part of the problem is that I have spent most of the last month either thinking or talking about properties. I have written long checklists of what I want (and don't want) and we've had endless circular conversations about what each of us is prepared to compromise on. We spend all evening on various property websites, studying floor plans and staring at photographs of other people's homes. I wake up in the middle of the night consumed by worry about something insignificant (Where will I straighten my hair in the mornings? Will the letter box big enough for Amazon parcels?) and have to add it to my ever-growing list of questions.
On Sunday morning, after a particularly epic meltdown on Saturday night, we sat in bed and made the latest in a series of complicated spreadsheets to determine what we could and couldn't afford. Having come to a reasonable conclusion, my sanity demanded that I get up and do something completely different with my morning before I analysed the figures to the point of madness. It was only natural that I headed straight to the kitchen. The familiar rhythm of cracking eggs and stirring together ingredients did more for than even the best spreadsheet could.
Really though, I made brownies because I knew that I would need them to help me make some big scary grown up phone calls this week.
~
Toasted hazelnut brownies Very vaguely adapted from an original recipe in The TelegraphYield: 16 brownies
I bought my ground hazelnuts from a supermarket in France where they are pretty easy to find, I presume because they are used in various fancy French desserts. You can, of course, grind your own. The hazelnut flavour is not particularly pronounced - it's more of a warm background note - so I think it's nice to add some chopped hazelnuts either on top or through the batter. These brownies freeze very well.
Ingredients
- 300g (12 oz) dark chocolate (I used 70%), chopped roughly
- 175g (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter
- 120ml (1/2 cup) maple syrup
- 4 eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 30g (just under 1/2 cup) cocoa powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda/bicarbonate of soda
- A pinch of sea salt
- 50g (1/2 cup) ground hazelnuts
- Roughly chopped hazelnuts to scatter on top
Cooking Directions
- Preheat the oven to 180C/350F. Grease a 22cm square tin.
- Spread the ground hazelnuts out on a baking tray and bake in the oven for 10 - 15 minutes until just turning golden brown. Set aside to cool.
- In a bowl over a pan of simmering water, slowly melt the chocolate and butter. Make sure that the bowl doesn't touch the water. When melted, remove from the heat, transfer to a large mixing bowl and allow to cool.
- Add the maple syrup to the chocolate mixture and mix well with a wooden spoon. Add the eggs one by one and the vanilla and continue to mix until incorporated. Sift the cocoa powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt into the mixture and finally fold in the toasted hazelnuts until combined.
- Pour the mixture into the cake tin, scatter with chopped hazelnuts and bake for 20-30 minutes. The brownies should still be moist but should be set in the middle; if you stick a toothpick in, it won't come out clean but it won't have any raw batter on it.
- Allow the brownie to cool before transferring to a wire rack and cutting into pieces.