Cook yourself thin brownies

Elly at Elly says opa! has set up a new blog event called "Eat to the Beat" where you create a meal or drink that relates to a song, album, band etc. I got thinking and initially drew a blank, creativity went on holiday for a little while, so I spent some time looking through my itunes music trying to be inspired and nothing really clicked, until i was listening to the radio a few days ago. Leona Lewis was doing a cover of Snow Patrol's song "Run", which in turn made me think of another track of theirs called Chocolate! It all sounded perfect, basing my dish on a song called chocolate by a band from my own country! I had little novel ideas of a chocolate and ice cream dish to combine the idea of the song title and the cold snow idea from the band name. However I was reminded ofan episode of Cook yourself thin that I had seen ages ago where they had made some really yummy looking chocolate brownies, so I decided to give it a go. And topped it off with a litt

The original recipe called for pumpkin, however the only time of year that you would get some here is Halloween, seeing as it's now February I'd be waiting a while to try these so I substituted with 1/2 swede and 1/2 carrot mix of same weight.


Cook Yourself Thin Chocolate Brownies

Makes 9 brownies

Ingredients
100g raw, prepared swede, peeled and cut into smallish chunks
100g raw, prepared carrot, peeled and cut into smallish chunks
75g organic dark cooking chocolate (at least 70 per cent cocoa)
1/2 heaped tsp cinnamon
100g ground almonds
25g organic cocoa powder
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
4 tbsp clear runny honey (equals roughly 160g)
1.5 tbsp medium maple syrup (equals roughly 50g)
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 medium organic free range eggs

Recipe
1. Preheat oven to 160˚C. Grease tin (About 7"x7") lightly with vegetable oil.
2. Place the carrot and swede in a microwavable bowl with a small pool of water. Cover with cling film and heat in the microwave for 8 minutes on medium high.
3. Remove from the microwave, drain the liquid and re-cling before microwaving again for 3 minutes on high.
4. Mix your cinnamon, ground almonds, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt.
5. Bash up the chocolate inside its packet so that it is left in biggish chunks.
6. In another bowl, whisk up the eggs, honey, maple syrup and vanilla extract until pale and full of surface bubbles.
7. When the pumpkin is out of the microwave, drain all the water again and whisk until the chunks have turned to a puree. Add the broken chocolate and leave to melt.
8. Once mostly melted, add the egg mixture to the pumpkin and chocolate and beat until fully mixed before adding the almond and cocoa powder mixture. Mix thoroughly.
9. Pour into the prepared tin and place in the middle of the oven for 35 mins exactly. Allow to cool in the tin before serving.