White chocolate brownies (from ‘1001 cupcakes, cookies & other tempting treats’ ed. Susanna Tee. Pub. Parragon Books, 2009.)

Sunday afternoon of the last weekend  in June and the judgment can be made that it has performed as a summer weekend should. Warm (definitely not hot), sunny and with more than a hint of languid, gardens are at their most delicious with big frosted pink to lipstick red roses and peonies, iceberg to royal blue delphiniums and madly exuberant  alchemilla mollis (ladies mantle, but why would you call it that when its Sunday best name calls up images of every blousy, buxom tousled haired slightly rough-trade beauty of history and literature?) The middle weekend of Wimbledon looks back on a week of the defeat of the big names (Nadal, Federer) and on some glorious British successes which we could enjoy without having to pretend to be doing something else so as not to put the players off. (That is after Laura Robson settled down from her first set nerves – and quite a lot of attending to washing machines and making tea was seen to at that time, for which the smooth functioning of the rest of the week will thank her.) When June is lovely, it is so wonderful you want to catch the utter glory of it and freeze dry it to be available for ever – I think I may be on the way to getting the idea of ‘mindfulness’ if I work a little harder.

But back to the Sunday Quest and the ideal sweet treat. Dark chocolate is definitely too heavy for high summer’s finest Sunday so, just as we shed dark clothing for lighter colours at this time of year, I turned to white chocolate to make white chocolate brownies – often called blondies – whose pale brown coat deceptively conceals a chocolate heart.  I can’t remember where the meadow flowered table cloth came from – I didn’t embroider it – but it is so of this moment that I couldn’t resist photographing the brownies on it.

White chocolate brownies

(from ‘1001 cupcakes, cookies & other tempting treats’ ed Susanna Tee. Pub. Parragon Books, 2009)

115 g/4 oz butter (+extra for greasing the tin)

225 g/8 oz white chocolate 

75 g/2 3/4 oz pecan or walnut pieces (I used  well over 85 g/3 oz)

2 eggs

115 g/4 oz soft light brown sugar

115 g/ 4oz self-raising flour

Preheat oven to 160 degrees C (fan oven)/180 degreesC/350 degrees F/ Gas Mark 4

Lightly grease a 18 cm/ 7 inch square (or similar) baking tin &/or line with baking parchment (I grease it and line it as I can just lift the whole thing out and more easily transport it to the church.)

Roughly chop the chocolate and walnuts. Put c. 50 g/2 oz of the chocolate and the butter in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of gently simmering water until both butter and chocolate are melted. Stir and then allow to cool slightly. Meanwhile, put eggs and sugar into a large bowl and whisk together, beating in the butter and chocolate  when cool. Fold in the flour, chopped chocolate and nuts and spoon the mixture into the tin. Smooth the surface.

Bake for c. 30 minutes or until just set outside but slightly gooey inside. (After 25 minutes mine was perhaps a little too cooked inside. I shall hover around the oven after 20 minutes next time.) Cool in the tin and cut into slices. Delicious!

White chocolate brownies (from ‘1001 cupcakes, cookies & other tempting treats’ ed. Susanna Tee. Pub’ Parragon Books 2009)