Custard & Chocolate Brownies With Chopped Hazelnuts
tvdheuvel
4 July 2023
easy
18-20
Summer is flying by! The last few weeks I finally had my parents and later on my sister over for their first visit since 2019, we started painting the house and I achieved a major milestone in my expat life as I received my Irish Citizenship. So many happy occasions! And is there any better way to celebrate than with chocolate? Or even better, with custard & chocolate brownies with chopped hazelnuts?
This recipe is basically a mix of two recipes: a basic brownies recipe and my family’s custard recipe. Both are easy to make but you do need to manage your time well to avoid the custard from developing a film, or the brownie dough from getting to solid.
A few tips for making these custard & chocolate brownies with chopped hazelnuts:
- The brownie batter is very thick, if you are hoping to spread it or swirl it, it may be difficult. The custard is a lot thinner and can be spread so if you want to get more of a swirl or layered result you should focus on achieving this with the custard. I Put one layer of brownie dough on the bottom to make sure the brownies had a solid base. I then put spoonfuls of each on top and jiggled the tray to level it out. I tried swirling but failed epically as it just looked way messier than when you try to make a chocolate-vanilla swirl cake.
- You’ll see in my photos that Irish custard tends to be more darker yellow, but if you are in Belgium and are making this note that “puddingpoeder” tends to be a lot lighter in colour. Not that it matters much, the texture and taste is still the same.
- Avoid the brownie dough from setting too much before spreading it across, it’ll be easier to work with if it’s not too cold.
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Ingredients:
Adjust Servings
| 165g unsalted butter | |
| 165g dark chocolate (at least 70% cocoa solids) | |
| 3 medium-sized eggs | |
| 330g caster sugar (for brownies) | |
| 10g vanilla sugar (for brownies, divide by 10 to use vanilla extract) | |
| 5g vanilla sugar (for custard, divide by 10 to use vanilla extract) | |
| 3.5tbsp caster sugar (for custard) | |
| 135g plain flour | |
| 45g cocoa powder | |
| 0.5tsp sea salt | |
| 0.5tsp baking powder | |
| 25g custard powder | |
| 375ml full fat milk | |
| 4tbsp chopped hazelnuts |
Directions
1.
Preheat the oven to 190°C (170°C fan)
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2.
We start with the brownie dough
Melt the butter and chocolate at low temperature. Set aside as soon as it's melted. Let it cool down for 5-10 minutes.
Whisk the eggs together with the vanilla sugar and the caster sugar (note: the ingredients have separate quantities for the brownies and custard, double check that you don't use the wrong amount). I used my KitchenAid for this. Whisk until it's a pale and thick batter.
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3.
While the chocolate is cooling down, we move on to the custard
Put 3/4 of the milk into a saucepan along with the vanilla sugar and caster sugar. Put the remaining milk aside and whisk in the custard powder.
Heat up the milk (whisk while doing so) until it starts to boil. Turn it off and set aside.
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4.
Add a tablespoon at a time to the cold milk and whisk well, this will avoid lumps.
When the cold milk jug starts to feel warm you can stop adding the hot milk and instead gradually whisk the now warm milk into the hot milk.
Now put the mixture back on medium heat. Do not let it boil and keep whisking. The custard will start to thicken after only a few minutes. Set aside and let it cool down. You want it to be thicker than you would serve alongside some cake but still pourable. You can compare it to natural greek yoghurt. It shouldn't need more than 3 minutes. Let it cool down while we continue with the brownie batter.
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5.
Add the cooled down melted chocolate sauce to the eggs and sugar
Stir well and gradually add the flour, cocoa powder, sea salt, and baking powder until you get a thick, smooth batter.
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6.
Line your baking tin or oven dish with baking paper
Put a layer of brownie batter on the bottom and sprinkle it with half of the chopped hazelnuts.
You can now layer the brownies as you wish: you can do a layer of custard, then one of brownie batter and sprinkle hazelnuts in between but keep in mind the brownie batter is very thick so spreading it out is difficult. I opted for one thin layer of custard on top of the brownie base and then put blobs of the custard, hazelnut and brownie across from each other so that each brownie would have a nice mix of all three. When finished, jiggle the tin to level out the layers as best as possible.
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7.
Place in the oven for 45-50 minutes
This will make them still gooey. If you prefer it to be more cakey you can leave them in for longer.
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Notes
My brownie dish is W18 x L18 x H4.5cm
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