flourless chocolate brownies anyone?

I made this the other weekend, a last minute decision when contemplating on making dessert for my brother and his family who were coming down from Setiawan to visit my parents. It was on a Saturday evening, so it was my usual time with the boys to have dinner with their grandparents, and my other brother and his daughter were joining us as well. The more, the merrier and the more reason I wanted to bake something for dessert to be enjoyed by the whole family. Thoriq for the past number of times have been wanting to eat flourless brownies and I never made any, and while contemplating on what to bake, I actually "ran" into the recipe of flourless brownies by that gorgeous kitchen diva, Nigella Lawson. Checked the ingredients required and eventhough there were one or two items that I do not have and need to improvise by replacing them with what I do have, I thought ok this is it. So brownies again, but totally different from my usual walnut and chocolate brownies or that sinful brownies with the orange zest cream cheese topping. This one as the name says is flourless and because of that, comes out really gooey, and you simply have to make the hot chocolate sauce to drizzle over the brownies and vanilla icecream (which you do not need but I must say is a must-have to complete this whole dessert).  Anyhow I baked it, took it to the parent's and it went down well with the kids and adults. There were some leftover and eventhough I would have loved to bring a little back, I needed to ensure that Ruiz sticks as close as possible to this diet I am putting him on (cut him off sodas and any sugary drinks, and make him have water 99 percent of the time, and cutting out all the sweets which means I have to bake less or I can bake but please donate or give away three quarter of what I baked, have brown rice at home which I have already introduced and makes up half of the rice cooked nowadays, and I am considering just buying only brown rice when I finally run out of the white rice I have currently, cutting his portions to half, and having more sandwiches, omit the white bread of course). The reason he has to be put on a diet is because he weighs more than mommy does and although he is cute and round and chubby and you just want to hug him and wish you can pinch him and roll around with him all day long (which he hates), I don't want his weight to get out of control which will be a lot worse for him if I start later. I just started him on this diet like for the past week and a half and we will see how it goes.

Anyway coming back to the brownies, due to that diet for Ruiz (which helps me control my chocolate and sweets intake as well), I did not bring any leftovers home. Mak told me last night when I saw her that the leftovers were gone rather quickly the next morning, so I am glad everyone enjoyed it. Therefore, I would love to share the recipe with you brownie lovers out there. Make sure you make the hot chocolate sauce, plonk a good scoop of vanilla icecream over the brownies, drizzle the hot chocolate over but do not overdo it, and have a great time. And since I did not have the chance to take pictures of it, I am sharing Nigella's picture of the brownies (which are professionally taken by the way as compared to any of mine). So enjoy and have a chocolatey brownie Sunday everyone.

flourless chocolate brownie
pic via nigella.com

Brownie:
225g dark chocolate
225g butter
2 tsp vanilla extract
200g caster sugar
3 eggs, beaten
150g ground almonds
100g chopped walnuts

Chocolate sauce:
75g dark chocolate
125ml double cream
2 x 15ml tbsp Camp coffee or 2tsp of instant espresso powder 
dissolved in 2tbsp water (I replaced this with 2tbsp or slightly less of nescafe)
1 x 15ml tbsp golden syrup

Method:
for the Brownie:
1. pre-heat oven to 170C
2. Melt the chocolate and butter gently over low heat in a heavy based saucepan
3. Take the pan off the heat, mix in vanilla and sugar, and let it cool a little
4. Beat the eggs into the pan along with the ground almonds and chopped walnuts

Turn into a 24cm square tin or use a foil one. Bake in the oven for 25 to 30 minutes. The top will have set but the mixture will still be gooey (the top for my brownie was rather crisp i must say). Once cooler, cut carefully (recommended to cut four down, four across into 16 squares, though I cut smaller and had more squares).

for the sauce:
1. break up the chocolate and put into a heavy based saucepan
2. add the remaining ingredients, place pan over a gentle heat and let everything melt together
3.once everything has melted, stir well, take off the heat and pour into a jug to serve